New IU institute focuses on patient individualization

IU recently publicized that it has invested in one of the newest fields of health care — personalized medicine.

The newly created IU Institute of Personalized Medicine will be awarded $11.25 million in funding from a joint partnership of the IU Department of Medicine, IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indiana Physician Scientist Initiative and the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center. A Lilly Endowment grant will provide another $60 million.

The institute’s members were appointed from various departments, including the IU Schools of Medicine, Informatics and Computing and Nursing. Dr. David A. Flockhart, MD, Ph.D., formally the Chief of Clinical Pharmacology at the IU School of Medicine, was named the institute’s director.

The institute will research and work with several diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and pediatric illnesses while trying to create drugs that can adapt to and accommodate each patient This approach would replace the “one-size-fits-all” prescriptions used now.

Often, a patient’s reaction and diseases can cause his particular prescriptions to become  less effective because of specific, genetic reasons.

“Pharmaceutical companies make drugs that are ‘blockbusters’ that  have standard doses for everyone and often don’t treat individual patients,” Flockhart said. “Take Plavix for example,  which is used to (stop) blood from clotting, such as immediately after a surgery. Some patients do not respond to this drug for genetic reasons.”

This individualized approach to medication stems from recent advances in genetic and genomic research.

Using the genetic code, researchers are beginning to understand the minute differences in patients’ metabolisms and how that can influence their  responsiveness to drugs. 

With these “personalized” drugs and treatments, Flockhart said, treatments should take less time and cost less money, while resulting in a  faster patient recovery time.

“We’re unique in that we have the Indiana BioBank, which will greatly facilitate research and provide our researchers with real samples and comprehensive medical records,” said Anne T. Nguyen, director of Indiana’s only BioBank and program director for the Institute.

The Indiana BioBank is a facility that collects and stores tissue and other body samples for research purposes. The samples are collected from a diverse range of patients at centers all over the state.

These samples are analyzed and then added to a medical record that is made available to researchers via state-of-the-art software, database and communication systems.

“We hope that this system will provide the tools that will catalyze collaboration and research and improve patient treatment,” Nguyen said.

No other state has an equivalent system to the institute and the IU Health Network, Flockhart said.

He described the partnership as “a system in which clinical care, research opportunities and educational involvement all simultaneously happen in one place.”

Flockhart will serve as the director for five years. During that time he said he is determined for the institute to outlive the experimental stage and become a permanent part of the IU Health Network.

To accomplish this goal, he said he hopes to secure external funding and collaboration with industry and partnerships with philanthropic resources.

“It’s a really unique institute unlike any other in the U.S.,” Flockhart said. “We hope it will catalyze new clinical research and give doctors better drugs and a more stratified approach to medicine.”