Advances in DNA Methylation Analysis: The New Frontier for Clinical Diagnostics
Technological breakthroughs in Omic technologies have led to a new wave of molecule biomarkers and clinical insights. Now, technology platforms from proteomics, metabolomics, and epigenomics are becoming tested as frequently as genetics and offering even more insight for clinicians to use for their patients. This growth is most prevalent in the field of epigenetic methylation.
DNA methylation is a biomarker which relates to DNA expression. However, unlike genetic testing, this marker is changeable by almost every factor in our lives including nutrition, fitness, environmental factors, medications, aging and disease. In recent years, this has become popular in the setting of biological age testing. As age is the biggest risk factor for almost every disease, DNA methylation based clocks have given us the most accurate tools to quantify this process and treat the aging process preventatively.
In this course, Dr. Jessica Lasky-Su from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital will elaborate on the developments which have been made to epigenetic age clocks and discuss OMICm Age. OMICm age is the most advanced epigenetic clock which has been developed from a novel multi-omic dataset. Dr. Lasky-Su will talk about how the improvements in this clock make application in clinical medicine much more feasible and improve on limitations of previous age clocks.
DNA methylation is also expanding beyond the field of aging. Over the past few years, algorithms using DNA methylation data have been developed to predict disease, predict clinical response to common drugs such as metformin and Semaglutide, predict smoking and drinking status and even predict death. Ryan Smith, founder of TruDiagnostic, will address other ways to use methylation analysis in your clinic to improve the way you treat patients.
This conference will be “one of a kind” in providing insights into this rapidly evolving field from both the research and clinical perspective. Any health care provider interested in the newest and most accurate tools to measure aging and many other disease conditions in a single test will not want to miss this conference. The focus of this conference will be on delivering useful information that can be translated into clinical practice and patient education. You will not want to miss this program.
Hourly Schedule
September 26, 2023
- 5:00pm - 5:30pm
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Speakers:
Jeff Bland, PhD
- 5:30pm - 6:00pm
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Speakers:
Ryan Smith
- 6:00pm - 6:30pm
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Speakers:
Dr. Jessica Lasky-Su
- 6:30pm - 7:00pm
- Panel discussion with all speakers
Speakers
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Jeff Bland, PhDFunctional Medicine Founder and Pioneer
Dr. Jeffrey Bland is a personable and highly respected thought leader who has spent more than four decades focused on the improvement of human health.
He is known worldwide as the founder of the Functional Medicine movement, which represents his vision for a care model that is grounded in systems biology and informed by research that he has a unique ability to synthesize. His pioneering work has created the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute (PLMI), as well as the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), the global leader in Functional Medicine education. Since 1991, hundreds of thousands of healthcare practitioners have participated in PLMI and IFM programs, and this collective knowledge has positively impacted the lives of patients all over the world.
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Ryan SmithTruDiagnsotic
Ryan Smith is founder of TruDiagnsotic. Ryan received a BA in Biochemistry from Transylvania University before heading to medical school in 2013. After passing USMLE Step 1, he decided to leave and open up a pharmacy in the United States that focused on peptide synthesis and formulations for pharmaceutical preparations. That pharmacy, Tailor Made Compounding, became the 4th fastest growing company in healthcare in the US and grw to 80 million in revenue within 3 years. Through this pharmacy work, Ryan saw the value of preventative medicine. Many of the physicians Tailor Made served were treating age as a disease and a primary outcome but needed better tools to measure this process. As a result, Ryan exited Tailor Made in 2020 to create TruDiagnostic.
TruDiagnostic is a CLIA certified lab and health data company which specializes in understanding and reporting insights found through Epigenetic methylation data. Since starting in 2020, TruDiagnostic has created the largest private epigenetic database in the world with over 15,000 patients tested on the EPIC850k array. From this dataset, they have created many new algorithms to interpret methylation data including algorithms to predict inflammatory markers, disease diagnosis, telomere length, aging pace, immune cell subsets, cellular replication, and more. TruDiagnostics has also led research in the field with over 30+ clinical trials investigating the best ways to reverse these markers through diet, lifestyle, and prescription interventions. Currently, TruDiagnostic is working with collaborators from Duke, Harvard, Yale, UCSF, Ohio St. and more to uncover new insights from the methylome. TruDiagnostic is also the only commercial company on the market to offer 2nd or 3rd generation aging algorithms which have shown to be more predictive and precise than 1st generation aging clocks.
In addition to his work with pharmaceuticals, Ryan also consults with international pharmacies and has set up pharmacies in Thailand and Mexico. In addition, Ryan has developed novel supplements and cosmetic formulations with multiple 100M supplement brands and consults with clinics in the cash pay wellness space.
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Dr. Jessica Lasky-SuLeader in applying metabolomics research to epidemiology
Dr. Lasky-Su has been a leader in applying metabolomics research to epidemiology, covering a range of chronic diseases over the life course, with a focus on respiratory outcomes (e.g. asthma). Much of her work has focused on “integrative metabolomics” – the integration other omics with using a metabolomic-centric perspective to study complex diseases. With integrative metabolomics as an emerging field, Dr. Lasky’s scholarship has contributed broadly, with peer-reviewed publications that focus on a range of disease outcomes (cancers, respiratory, ocular, infections, metabolic, neurodevelopment/mental health) and exposures (air pollutants, PFAS, nutrition, exercise) that may have a an impact on health over the life course. Her investigative success is also demonstrated with >225 peer-reviewed publications. To date, she has been invited to give > 40 national and international talks.
Dr. Lasky-Su has recently expanded her focus to study multiomics over the life course in the context of aging using the Mass General Brigham (MGB-Biobank), where she has generated a large, curated biobank cohort with multiomic data. As the most recent past president of the Metabolomics Society – the largest metabolomics society in the world – and the chairman of the NIH’s Consortium of Metabolomics Studies (COMETS) consortium – the largest international consortium of prospective metabolomics cohorts – over the past four years, her leadership in this area is unparalleled. She has also spearheaded new efforts, including initiating STROBE-metabolomics to provide reporting guidelines in this area, and the Metabolomic Epidemiology Task Group to define and formalize this emerging field of study. In addition, Dr. Lasky-Su has extensive funding in multiomics; she is the PI/MPI of 4 current NIH R01s in metabolomics, the PI on multiple private grants, and the Consortium PI several R/U NIH grants. Her success is also reflected in the success of her mentees and co-mentees who have received K grants and gone on to have successful research careers, with some achieving a rank as high as Full Professor.
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