Point of Care: Personalized Medicine I

Healthcare in Africa is a human-resource nightmare. According to the WHO's World Health Statistics for 2009, there are 2 doctors for every 10,000 people in Africa, 26 doctors for every 10,000 people in the US and 32 doctors for every 10,000 people in Europe.
To many, the solution to this anomaly seems simple: train more African doctors. Unfortunately, many African-trained doctors choose to work outside the continent, where their skills are worth more. The result is a not-so-curious osmosis. Sociologists call it the "Matthew effect"; while I myself had the option of studying medicine in Ghana after high school, choosing Yale was a no-brainer.
So, how do we improve healthcare in spite of that? I believe the answer lies in personalized medicine. "Personalized medicine" is a buzz-phrase that captures current efforts to harness the latest advances in biomedical science and information technology to provide indivualized healthcare and democratize the practice of medicine. The parallel with the IT industry is striking; some 35 odd years ago, the idea of a "personal computer" was deemed oxymoronic at best. It is believed that personalized medicine would reduce medical costs significantly by encouraging a more preventive approach to healthcare.
In Africa, cheap and handy tools that give people more control over their healthcare could make a world of difference, compensating for the seemingly inevitable egress of health professionals from the continent.
Today I'd like to mention a company whose forward-looking technology, I believe, is pushing the envelope in this regard. T2 Biosystems uses NMR technology to detect the presence of bacteria, cancer, viruses and small molecule drugs in blood, saliva or urine. Their product, the NanoDx, is the nifty portable shown above (the picture is borrowed from the company website).
More on the NanoDx and how it works in my next blog.

The future of biotech in Africa

This is the first in a series of blogs I intend to write about the prospects of using biotech to fuel development in Africa in much the same way that ICT has done in places like India. The title of this blog is based on a popular poem by Keats in which he claims that, by dissecting the physical nature of light, Newton had sullied the beauty of the rainbow. Had Keats lived today, perhaps he would have said the same thing about the Watson-Crick discovery of the structure of DNA, the most significant watershed scientific moment in the last century and what many believe to be the start of the modern biotech revolution.
Keats would have been as wrong now as he was then, for science hardly detracts from the beauty of nature. An engineer by training, I believe the true value of science lies in its application to solve problems and better the lot of humanity. As a matter of fact, Keats would have been less likely to pen his (in)famous lines had he lived in our age and appreciated the utility of the radio, TV, microwave and a myriad other inventions that Newton's discovery laid the foundation for.
Africa, with its sundry challenges and very human problems, presents the perfect stage for a new breed of philanthropic science. Biotech has the strongest potential to play this role; few industries can match the breadth of its impact in fields as diverse as food, medicine or energy and the immediate effect it could have on the quality of people's lives.