At the opening of the Executive Yuan Biotechnology Industry Strategy Advisory Committee (BTC) meeting in September this year, the vision of precision health for all ages by 2030 was announced, successfully focusing on Taiwan's BIO + ICT development goals.
The Human Genome Project, considered one of the three major scientific endeavors in the early 21st century, successfully decoded the human genome sequence, which has had a significant impact on disease research, testing, treatment, and drug development. Countries around the world are actively investing in scientific research projects; for example, the UK-Biobank project in the UK has accumulated hundreds of thousands of whole-genome sequencing data, and Academia Sinica in Taiwan has the Taiwan Precision Medicine Project, which aims to create a genetic database of one million people.
Realizing the vision of precision health requires three key technological pillars: gene sequencing technology, data analysis technology, and big data. Gene sequencing technology has made rapid progress in the past 20 years, surpassing Moore's Law in the semiconductor industry. Several years ago, individuals could complete whole-genome sequencing for $1,000, obtaining completely personalized genetic data for applications such as drug safety. In terms of data analysis technology, recent years have seen a significant reduction in gene data processing time thanks to accelerator chips like GPUs and AI supercomputers built with artificial intelligence.
The amount of data from a person's whole genome sequencing can be hundreds of times that of conventional medical imaging. Through AI supercomputers, the computational requirements that would have taken several days can be reduced to less than an hour. Furthermore, the construction of large databases that can meet the needs of precision health research is in full swing, with the goal of integrating large, heterogeneous databases such as genetic data, hospital data, and daily life data to accelerate precision health research.
Taiwan has a good foundation and development conditions in these three technological fields. For example, the National Health Research Institutes, which leads Taiwan's BIO research, released the National Health-1 Biomedical AI Supercomputer at the beginning of the year. Combined with the existing abundant gene sequencing research capabilities, the subsequent research results are highly anticipated.
Furthermore, the BTC conference also recommended that Taiwan build a large database through public-private partnerships, leveraging Taiwan's unique ethnic composition and the advantages of its accumulated medical data over the past 30 years to develop more precision health research. Meanwhile, this year also saw the launch of whole-genome sequencing technology priced at $200, significantly reducing the cost for consumers.
When these three technologies experience explosive growth in cost, speed, and quantity, we can expect more precision health research in the short term, and even more so, we can expect these research results to be applied to everyone, truly ushering in an era of precision health for all!
Source: Financial News Issue 671
Image source: pexels