The diseasome vs the healthsome: should medicine redefine the concept of disease?
by
Fabio Sanchez(Department of Medicine, KI)
→
Europe/Stockholm
Description
Exploring complex genetic traits has been a daunting undertaking despite the increasing availability of large amounts of data. But has this wealth of biological data made things easier in explaining disease? In this talk I illustrate some of the difficulties faced in the study of genetic susceptibility to inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis. Psoriasis is a disease that affects 2-3% of the Swedish population, causing huge personal and social expenses and increasing the risk of morbidity and mortality related to cardiovascular disease. Multiple factors associate with the disease including infections and other environmental substances as well as strong genetic factors. However, no clear model explaining psoriasis has yet been developed. I will describe my own work on the genetics of psoriasis and attempt to expose interactions between susceptibility factors. I argue that, in view of the multidimensionality of biological phenomena, we need to redefine the concepts of health and disease and establish a dialogue between different areas of expertise in order to develop a new research paradigm in complex diseases.
