Pieter Cullis
Pieter R. Cullis, Ph.D. FRSC, Director, Life Sciences Institute, University of British Columbia; Chair, Personalized Medicine Initiative; Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Director, NanoMedicines Research Group, UBC. Dr. Cullis and co-workers have been responsible for fundamental advances in the generation, loading and targeting of lipid nanoparticle (LNP) systems for intravenous delivery of small molecule drugs and macromolecular drugs such as small interfering RNA (siRNA). This work has contributed to three drugs that have been approved by regulatory agencies in the U.S. and Europe for the treatment of cancer and its complications. Dr. Cullis has co-founded ten biotechnology companies, has published over 300 scientific articles and is an inventor on over 60 patents. He also co-founded the BC Personalized Medicine Initiative in 2012, which now has 10 projects underway to implement molecularly based medicine into clinical practice in BC. Dr. Cullis has received many awards and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2004 and was awarded the Prix Galien, Canada’s premier prize for achievements in pharmaceutical R&D, in 2011. In 2015 Dr. Cullis published “The Personalized Medicine Revolution: How Diagnosing and Treating Disease are About to Change Forever”
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The Personalized Medicine Revolution: How Diagnosing and Treating Disease Are About to Change Forever
We are in the initial stages of a fundamental revolution in healthcare. We are moving from a “sickcare” system that treats people after they become ill using a “one size fits all” approach, to a healthcare system that is focused first on preventive healthcare to keep people well and second on tailoring therapies more accurately to the individual and their disease.
This revolution is being driven by new technologies that increasingly allow individuals to be analyzed at the molecular level in a rapid and cost-effective manner. These analyses include sequencing of genomic DNA to determine risk of disease as well as analyses of proteins and small molecules (metabolites) in blood and other bodily fluids to detect disease. Characterization of intestinal bacteria through fecal samples can give additional diagnostic information.
Specific protein or metabolite profiles provide “biomarkers” of incipient or overt disease as well as providing quantitative data that can be used to indicate response to therapy or lifestyle changes. The availability of personalized, precision medicine technology will dramatically empower the healthcare consumer and will fundamentally disrupt current medical practice.
