One of the pharmaceutical companies, together with scientists from the
University of Cambridge, will take part in a long-term project that is planned
to revolutionize medicine: DNA samples from 2 million people will be taken to
develop new drugs. The cost of the project, which will create new drugs for the
treatment of cancer, bronchial asthma, epilepsy and other diseases, is
estimated at 1.4 billion pounds.
It will take scientists about 10 years to implement the idea. Such a large
amount of data, the researchers say, will allow rare differences between
individuals to be detected, which in turn will lead to the development of new
effective drugs that act on the source of the disease, and not just on the
symptoms of the disease. All this will give doctors the opportunity to develop
individual treatment for each patient. The new technology has made it possible
to “read” DNA codes 1 million times faster than a couple of years ago. The
result of the work will be the development of personalized medicine, which will
take into account the needs of everyone.
Baldness and asthma
Researchers from Boston studied the frequency of diseases associated
with alopecia areata, among which bronchial asthma was found.
The work involved 3568 people with alopecia, in which scientists recorded the
frequency of other various diseases. So, allergic rhinitis, bronchial asthma
and eczema would be detected in 38.2% of people, contact dermatitis in 35%,
autoimmune thyroiditis was found in 14.6%, and depression and anxiety in 25% of
participants.
Comment: The connection between baldness and bronchial asthma is not accidental. First, baldness is caused by fungi, and antifungal drugs are used to treat it. Secondly, the reason that triggers the switch of the immune response to the allergic path is Candida fungi. More years of research are required to clarify the mechanisms of interaction between these phenomena, since fungi have an extremely versatile effect on the human body.