Carlos Slim Foundation (FCS) announced on Thursday the launch of the most extensive source of genetic information in Spanish available online about type 2 diabetes (DT2), a disease that affects millions of people in Latin America and around the entireworld.
In a statement, the Foundation explained that the portal is free access and the address is: www.type2Diabetesgenetics.org
The information represents "a great advance, since it allows scientists in Mexico and other Latin American countries to have access and use genetic information that, in the long term, will contribute to accelerate the advances in the knowledge and treatment of this threat to healthGlobal public, "he said.
He added that the portal was created by researchers from the Slim Initiative in Genomic Medicine (Sigma), whose main headquarters is the Broad Institute of the Technological Intututo of Massachusetts (MIT) and Harvard University, and which hascollaborators from Mexico and the United States.The portal is supported by the Foundation.
The portal is financed jointly by Sigma and the National Health Institutes project called Accelering Medicines Partnership T2D (in Spanish, Alliance to accelerate access to medicines for DT2).
The portal contains information from the main international information networks, including data from more than 100,000 DNA samples and the complete results of 28 wide genome association studies.
Among the results are those of the recent SIGMA studies, in which genetic risk factors were discovered that are fundamental for the development of DT2 among the populations of Latin America.
“Type 2 diabetes is a growing public health problem, which affects up to 14 percent of the adult population in Mexico.Combating this condition is one of our greatest imperatives.Therefore, our investment in the portal and mainly in Sigma, which in its first stage achieved the discovery of important genes related to the risk of type 2 diabetes, and in its second stage it works to find diagnostic methods and better treatments of this disease,In order to improve the health and life of future generations, ”said Marco Antonio Slim Domit of the Carlos Slim Foundation.
Genetics is a determining factor in DT2, a complex disease whose development also depends on the influence of the environment and lifestyle.
It also allows you to discover aspects about biological mechanisms linked to condition and, therefore, serve to make scientists working in both public and private sectors identify strategies and develop new and more effective therapies.
However, until now, only a select group of specialists had had the opportunity to have total access to the data and analyze large -scale genomic studies, that situation generated obstacles to advance against the disease.
The director of the Broad Institute, Eric Lander, said that “the open data exchange is essential for scientific progress, but it cannot always be easily achieved.This portal not only helps us overcome that barrier- to allow us to access patient data from all over the world- will also allow scientists to lead the most prevalent genetic risk factors between the populations of Latin America and others who haveState surreated in long -scale genomic studies. "
