For nearly a year and a half, Michael Snyder, PhD, and his lab members scrutinized some of his body's most intimate secrets: the sequence of his DNA, the RNA and proteins produced by his cells, the metabolites and signaling molecules flowing through his blood.
They discovered, in a shocking development, that he was predisposed to type-2 diabetes and then watched as the condition developed. As a result, Snyder changed his diet and exercise habits and was able to bring the disease under control, long before it would have ever been diagnosed with traditional methods.
The results (subscription required) of the unprecedented analysis were reported earlier this year in Cell. The findings represent a significant milestone in the realization of the promise of truly personalized medicine, or tailoring health care to an individual's circumstances.
For this round of Ask Stanford Med, we've asked Snyder to respond to your questions about how his study may help the advancement of personalized medicine and about the use of gene sequencing to guide preventative medicine.
Questions can be submitted to Snyder by either sending a tweet that includes the hashtag #AskSUMed or posting your question in the comments section below. We'll collect questions until this Friday (July 20) at 5 pm.
When submitting questions, please abide by the following ground rules:
- Stay on topic
- Be respectful to the person answering your questions
- Be respectful to one another in submitting questions
- Do not monopolize the conversation or post the same question repeatedly
- Kindly ignore disrespectful or off topic comments
- Know that Twitter handles and/or names may be used in the responses
Snyder will respond to a selection of the questions submitted, but not all of them, in a future entry on Scope.
Finally - and you may have already guessed this - an answer to any question submitted as part of this feature is meant to offer medical information, not medical advice. These answers are not a basis for any action or inaction, and they're also not meant to replace the evaluation and determination of your doctor, who will address your specific medical needs and can make a diagnosis and give you the appropriate care.
Previously: How genome testing can help guide preventative medicine, Stanford geneticist to discuss future of personalized medicine in live Science chat and 'Omics' profiling coming soon to a doctor's office near you?
Photo by Wellcome Library
