TIGP (BIO)—Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative: The Experience from Taichung Veterans General Hospital

Abstract

Precision medicine is based on the combination of genomics, medication, environmental exposure, and different lifestyle among individuals, pushing medical diagnosis, treatment and prediction, from traditional cohort study to personalized medicine. Precision medicine will integrate large numbers of clinical practice, medical information, genomics information, and life styles of patients to conduct integrated analysis, and comprehensively explore the impact of individualized differences on medical care, also achieve comprehensive personalized medical treatment; moreover, it can improve health care and enhance treatment development. The "Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative” project in Taichung Veterans General Hospital aims to collect more than 100,000 genetic data from patients. The program used clinically applicable genetic loci to explore the strategy of clinical disease risk assessment, drug dose, and modified medication, etc. The project also utilizes the genome-wide association analysis to analyze variant sites, combining the participants' clinical data, past medical history, lifestyle, biochemical values in order to find more applications of health care. For example, we identified that the prevalence of genetically defined familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) was 1.13% in the hospital-based population in Taiwan, which was higher than the rate observed in individuals with clinically defined FH. We also found the risk of CAD and AMI was increased to varying degrees in subjects with different FH risk alleles. Through the project, We expected to utilize precision medicine to achieve personalized medicine, increase the quality and welfare of our patients, and also establish a unique Han nationality precision medicine genetic database. By integrating the electronic medical records and clinical information, we will create novel precision medicine research, improve research quality and passion, and promote medical development.

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