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<\/p>\nSINGAPORE \u2013 Diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes at just three months old, Ms Ng Zhuang Shu has required daily insulin jabs since infancy and spent much of her childhood being rushed to the hospital due to hypoglycaemia, or dangerously low blood sugar. <\/p>\n
When planning for a family as an adult, genetic testing showed that she carried a mutation in the INS gene, which causes her diabetes. The mutation has a 50 per cent chance of being passed on to her children. <\/p>\n
Not wanting her child to suffer the way she had, Ms Ng, 32, a senior product development executive, and her husband, Mr Luis Teo, 33, a civil servant, underwent in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) with pre-implantation genetic testing. <\/p>\n
She was implanted with an embryo without the mutation, and later prenatal genetic testing confirmed \u2013 with 99.9 per cent accuracy \u2013 that her baby would not inherit her condition. <\/p>\n
In another case, immunologic and genetic testing revealed a new immune defect affecting a woman in her 30s, after she was admitted to the intensive care unit with a bacterial infection and was unresponsive to conventional treatments for more than five weeks. <\/p>\n
This discovery allowed doctors to administer targeted immune-augmenting therapy, and the woman was able to come off life support within days. <\/p>\n
These are just some examples of how genomics \u2013 a field of molecular biology\u00a0focused on the mapping and editing of\u00a0genomes \u2013 is being used across the National University Health System (NUHS), the public healthcare cluster said. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Adjunct Associate Professor Chin Hui-Lin (left), a geneticist with NUH, with patient Ng Zhuang Shu (centre), her husband Luis Teo and their five-month-old daughter Ellie Teo at the biennial Scientific and Innovation Summit at Shangri-La Hotel on April 2.<\/p>\n
ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM<\/p>\n
On April 2, NUHS launched a new centre focusing on genomics, as part of efforts to strengthen early diagnosis and allow for more tailored therapies and safer, more precise prescriptions. <\/p>\n
NUHS said the National University Centre for Genomic Medicine (NUGEM) will expand genomics testing beyond rare paediatric conditions, bringing together the cluster\u2019s expertise across different specialities, such as oncology and cardiology. <\/p>\n
Situated within the National University Hospital (NUH), NUGEM will be led by a multidisciplinary team comprising experts from various NUHS institutions \u2013 including the National University Cancer Institute and the National University Heart Centre, along with researchers from the National University of Singapore\u2019s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. <\/p>\n
Supported by NUS researchers, NUGEM will develop new tests for patients who are undiagnosed or have ambiguous genetic results. <\/p>\n
Even though genomics testing is already supporting care in various settings across NUHS, the use of the technology is still siloed, said NUGEM director Ng Kar Hui. <\/p>\n
The new centre aims to make its use more systematic and bring it closer to patients, said Associate Professor Ng, noting that NUGEM is supported by a combination of institutional investment, partnerships and national research funding, where applicable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese investments are aligned with long-term goals to make precision medicine part of our care, to improve care quality and outcomes,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Prof Ng noted that among the new centre\u2019s facilities is a genomics laboratory, which will enable more genetic testing to be done in-house, allowing for greater collaboration in addressing complex cases.<\/p>\n
NUGEM will also enhance NUHS\u2019 focus on pharmacogenomics, where a patient\u2019s genetic profile is used to guide the choice of medication and its dosage, enabling doctors to make safer and more effective prescriptions.<\/p>\n
The centre will expand pre-emptive pharmacogenomics panel testing \u2013 where testing for genetic variants is used\u00a0to determine if specific drugs are suitable for patients. <\/p>\n
\u201cMore than 2,000 patients have undergone pharmacogenomics testing at NUHS, with plans to scale towards preventive, population-level use,\u201d said NUHS. <\/p>\n
NUGEM was launched at the NUHS Scientific and Innovation Summit, held at the Shangri-La Singapore in Orange Grove Road. <\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Associate Professor Ng Kar Hui, director of NUGEM, at the launch of the National University Centre for Genomic Medicine by NUHS.<\/p>\n
ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM<\/p>\n
National Research Foundation chairman Heng Swee Keat, who attended the event, noted that the new centre is in line with the goal of the $37 billion Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2030 plan, to enable healthy ageing while managing healthcare costs. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe launch of NUGEM aligns with our Grand Challenge on maximising healthy and successful longevity, as genomic insights become increasingly vital for understanding and addressing age-related health conditions,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
In his keynote speech, World Health Organization (WHO) assistant director-general of health promotion and disease prevention and control Jeremy Farrar said the withdrawal of the United States from the WHO has resulted in an extraordinarily difficult time for the organisation.<\/p>\n
Still, he said, science remains a driver of sustainable economic growth, with Singapore\u2019s investments in science critical to the country\u2019s success.<\/p>\n
NUGEM can play an important role in growing the world\u2019s genomic knowledge, which is still largely dominated by data from Europe and North America. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor Singapore to take a leadership role and diversify that genomic data is going to be hugely important,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
For Ms Ng, whose daughter Ellie was born healthy in November, going through genetic testing and IVF was a minor hassle that gave her peace of mind about her child\u2019s health.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just have to trust the process,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SINGAPORE \u2013 Diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes at just three months old, Ms Ng Zhuang Shu has required daily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-371694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}