At an event in San Diego on Wednesday, former President Barack Obama praised the advances researchers are making in precision medicine, but lamented the slow pace of adoption of these technologies in the U.S. health system. I got

In a discourse talk to approximately 2,000 attendees at the Illumina Genomics Forum, Mr. Obama referred to the 2015 Precision Medicine Initiative, which aims to galvanize the deployment of personalized healthcare. did.

“I would say that we have continued to make great strides on the research side,” he said. “The cost of gene sequencing continues to fall, which means more people will use it, doctors will use it, and insurance companies will offer the potential to pay for it.

“In that progress has been slower than I would have liked, it has less to do with the details of precision medicine and more to do with the fact that we still have giant, creaky systems that occupy a sixth of the United States. There is. Economy.”

Obama said the system is evolving and is “more of a disease care system than a health care system. And I think you are.”

In a sometimes relaxed, entertaining, provocative and personal conversation, President Obama said his work on health policies such as the Affordable Care Act was partly responsible for his mother’s death from cancer at the age of 53. said to be due to

“I have witnessed not only the physical and mental toll she has taken, but also the complexity of having to navigate a highly inefficient healthcare system,” he said.

The former president shared the stage with Sonia Vallabh, who has a similar story. She co-leads research on prion disease prevention at Harvard University and her Broad Institute at MIT. Her former lawyer, she switched her career to her biomedical research after her mother died of undiagnosed rapid dementia at the age of 52. Vallabh had her genetic tested and learned that she had inherited her mutation and that she had a much higher risk of developing the same disease.

Illumina is a leading manufacturer of advanced genome sequencing hardware, software, and chemistry. The company recently acquired Grail and launched an early detection diagnostic test that can detect up to 50 types of cancer with a single blood test. Antitrust regulators in the US and Europe are seeking to unwind the deal.

Illumina CEO Francis D’Souza highlighted the advances DNA-based medicine has made in pediatric disease, cancer screening and rare disease detection. Over 205 countries are using gene sequencing as part of global surveillance efforts to track COVID-19. Gene sequencing is also increasingly used in agriculture to adapt crops and livestock to climate change.

“These technologies have the potential to end food insecurity for hundreds of millions of people around the world,” D’Souza said.

The Illumina Genomics Forum will be held throughout the week at the Manchester Grand Hyatt Downtown. Bill Gates, Scott Gottlieb, tennis legend Chris Evert and more will deliver presentations on global health and personalized medicine.