With the aim of allowing the implementation of so-called precision medicine in Brazil, the Brazilian Initiative on Precision Medicine – BIPMed was launched on the 13th, at the Fapesp headquarters in São Paulo, an unprecedented public genomic database in the country, with information gathered over several years, from studies carried out in different institutions and research groups.

The first online bank to group a large amount of genomic information in Latin America, BIPMed is the result of research work involving five Research, Innovation and Diffusion Centers (CEPIDs) supported by Fapesp: the Center for Research in Computational Engineering and Sciences (CCES, ), the Cell Therapy Research Center (CTC), the Obesity and Comorbidities Research Center (OCRC), and the Center for Research in Inflammatory Diseases (CRID) , led by the Institute for Research on Neurosciences and Neurotechnology (BRAINN).

Initially, BIPMed will be based on an electronic platform, built according to guidelines and principles of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), an international initiative that brings together more than 300 health research institutions, formed to accelerate the potential of genomic medicine through the exchange of information between researchers, for the benefit of human health.

Its main objective is to create a common framework of approaches that enables the responsible, voluntary and secure sharing of genomic and clinical data.

“Research in the area of ​​human genomics has been carried out for several years in Brazil and by various groups, but this data has never been made public in an organized database, as has been done for decades in the United States and Europe”, says Iscia Lopes -Cendes, professor at the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM) at Unicamp, BRAINN researcher and responsible for data formatting.

ACCESSIBLE GENETIC PROFILE

According to the researcher, accessibility to this type of information should help advance research in this area in Brazil, as many researchers will start to use data that reflects the genetic diversity of the Brazilian population, instead of reference data from other population groups. , from different regions of the world, currently available. In the future, it is expected that the bank will also offer phenotypic data on the Brazilian population.

BIPMed will be the first platform of its kind in Latin America, but can be used online by doctors and scientists around the world to share and obtain information on various aspects of genomic medicine and human health, as well as to support dissemination and training.

“The idea is that BIPMed can serve any researcher in Latin America to deposit genomic data, whether reference (normal individuals, representative of the population) or groups of patients, so that the bank progressively increases the amount of data offered”, explains Lopes-Cendes.

Conceptually, precision medicine considers scientific-technological knowledge as the basis for 21st century medicine, based on translational research, genomic medicine and personalized medicine. In this way, precision medicine proposes a new level of data integration to improve human health care.

ABOUT THE CEPIDS INVOLVED

Based at Unicamp, BRAINN focuses on investigating the mechanisms that lead to epilepsy and stroke, as well as the damage caused by their progression. It carries out research in the areas of genetics, neurobiology, pharmacology, neuroimaging, computer science, robotics, physics and engineering, with applications in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation.

Also at Unicamp, CCES is dedicated to the development and application of advanced computational methods to solve frontier problems in science and engineering, with the aim of promoting substantive advances in technological innovation and dissemination in this area of ​​knowledge, called e-Science .

Still at Unicamp, the OCRC's challenge is to seek solutions for obesity, a disease that results from an imbalance between caloric intake and energy expenditure, generally associated with diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis and some types of cancer.

Based at USP, the CTC focuses on basic and applied research in stem cells. CTC studies the molecular, cellular and biological characteristics of normal and pathological cells, and the critical evaluation of their potential therapeutic use.

CRID, also at USP, seeks to produce scientific knowledge and identify new therapeutic targets, based on various fields of Biomedical Sciences linked to basic research (genetics, molecular and cellular biology, immunology, pharmacology and pathology) and clinical research (rheumatology , immunology, infectology and dermatology), in addition to bioinformatics.