Vinicio A. de Jesus Perez, MD - phaware® interview 154

May 15, 2018

Vinicio de Jesus Perez, MD is Assistant Professor of Medicine (Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine) at the Stanford Adult PH Clinic where he trains fellows pursuing careers in PH and IPF. He is principal investigator of a research program with the ultimate goal of identifying new therapeutic targets to treat PH and IPF. In this episode, Dr. Vinicio de Jesus Perez discusses the 4th International Symposium: From Precision Biology to Precision Medicine in Pulmonary Hypertension.

My name is Vinicio de Jesus Perez. I am an assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine at Stanford University. I'm also a staff physician in the adult pulmonary hypertension clinic, also at Stanford.

Today, I would like to tell you about a very exciting event that will take place at Stanford on Friday, May 18, 2018, which is a symposium on pulmonary hypertension sponsored by the Wall Center for Pulmonary Vascular Disease.

The Wall Center sponsors a biannual symposium on pulmonary hypertension. It touches on different topics that are relevant to clinicians and researchers. We have been privileged to be able to recruit both national and international experts to attend these sessions.

Our experience in the past is that we have a huge demand for attendance. What we have tried to do is live stream the event this year. In that way, people who may be outside the United States, or in the United States but in other states, will be able to participate in the symposium and can also forward questions. It's a very interactive platform, whether we have practitioners and researchers in attendance or via the streaming platform.

This is going to take place on Friday, May 18, 2018, and it's going to take place before the start of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) International Meeting, which is to be held in San Diego this year. For this year, we have chosen the topic ‘From Precision Biology to Precision Medicine in Pulmonary Hypertension: Revolutionizing Healthcare through Revolutionary Science’.

The topic is set to address the amazing developments that we have seen in technology applied to precision medicine. These techniques are currently revolutionizing the field of pre-clinical research, looking at single-cell genomics, looking at new animal models of disease, fate mapping so that we can look at the contribution of each cell in the pathobiology of pulmonary hypertension, but then, the question becomes how does that translate into better clinical care for patients with pulmonary hypertension?

What we aim to divide this symposium into two parts. In the morning, we are going to be presenting some very cutting edge presentations that tackle the current technologies that are being applied to look at single cells in the setting of genomics, proteomics. We're going to be talking about the application of machine learning, artificial intelligence, new animal models, so it's going to be very basic. It's going to be tackling a lot of technology, but these are things that are currently out there. They are actually in popular culture being used by Facebook, by Google, and they are making their way into healthcare.

The second part is going to be about looking at the application of these tools as well as other precision medicine initiatives, such as metabolomics, genomics to the care of patients with pulmonary hypertension. And through all of this, we are going to be raising the relevant questions, such as, so how is this going to help me take better care of patients? Is this going to lead me to discover a biomarker that will help me prognosticate better for a patient? Is this going to help me identify better drugs with the least toxicity profile?

So we are not providing answers. What we are aiming for is to stir discussion, dialogue and, ultimately, have patients make up their own minds, but to then look at the role of precision medicines with a more balanced view, where you can actually see what the advantage is, but what the potential limitations may be and how we can overcome that so that we can move the field forward and offer better care for our patients.

So part of this will include also patients who will be also providing their input as to how does the patient see all this biology, all this medicine? What do they really want because what we want to get may be different from what the patient may actually want. And I think this is actually going to be very exciting, and our goal is that people are going to come out being excited about the possibilities, but also being grounded into what the realities are.

If you want to learn more, and if you want to register for the symposium, there's still space available. I invite you to go to our website, med.stanford.edu/phsymposium.html. This contains information about the symposium, the participating faculty, and the link to register.

My name is Vinicio de Jesus Perez, and I am aware that I'm rare.

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