By CARMEN PAUN, DANIEL PAYNE, RUTH READER and ERIN SCHUMAKER10/31/2024 02:00 PM EDT
CONNECTING THE DOTS
Researchers studying human health and disease should scrutinize whether taking race and ethnicity into account is appropriate at every stage of their work, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said in a report released Wednesday.
Why it matters: The idea of dividing people into biologically separate groups, known as race science, isn’t scientific, the academies said. There’s no genetic or biological basis for race, so using it in biomedical research to explain biology or genetic differences is inappropriate, it added.
Genetic variants that put certain people more at risk for a disease — such as the high propensity of sickle cell disease among Black people — are due to geographic distribution or ancestry rather than race, the report said.
Algorithms assessing organ disease or determining whether a patient faces a high risk of a specific outcome contribute to health disparities and reinforce the misconception that there are innate biological differences among racial and ethnic groups, the report said.
NASEM recommends that researchers be transparent at each stage of the development of clinical algorithms, AI models and medical devices and report their performance across racial and ethnic groups.
They should also evaluate whether race and ethnicity are appropriate to note in all their work and base their decisions to include or exclude racial and ethnic categories on scientific rationale. The report notes that tracking health care outcomes based on race is valuable, as is including different racial groups in research, and distinguishes that tracking from race science.
What’s next? The report said changing how researchers use race and ethnicity in their studies will require coordinated efforts and investment, as well as time and effort to retrain people and adopt new ways of thinking.
WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE
This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care.
AI made Tom Hanks and Robin Wright look much younger as they were filming the new movie Here, Hanks told Stephen Colbert.
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THE LAB
Cancer tumor samples taken more than a decade ago could hold the key to future cures — thanks to artificial intelligence.
A new partnership from biotechnology firms 10x Genomics and Cure51 will take more than 1,000 tumor samples from exceptional cancer survivors to try to understand why they lived despite dim prognoses.
Leaders of the companies told Daniel they believe reviewing the samples with artificial intelligence and other new technologies could yield insights and eventually cures.
“The ability to extract data and insightful information from tissues that are so old is a revolution,” said Simon Istolainen, co-founder of Cure51.
How so? Researchers at the firms will examine the tumor samples from more than 40 countries worldwide, focusing on aggressive forms of pancreatic cancer, small cell lung cancer and glioblastoma.
The researchers expect to learn more about cancer cells and, at the same time, understand how those cells fit into tumors.
The samples themselves are “extremely rare and extremely valuable” now that AI can analyze them, said Ben Hindson, co-founder and chief scientific officer at 10x Genomics.
Why it matters: Researchers and drug developers share hopes that AI and other technologies will lead to accelerated breakthroughs across several fields.
“I think this is the beginning of something very promising,” said Nicolas Wolikow, CEO and co-founder of Cure51.
WORLDVIEW
The U.S. was once a laggard among wealthy nations in convincing its population to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
A new report on Europe’s uptake rates suggests a return to the mean.
The percentage of Europeans ages 60 and older who received a shot between September 2023 and July 2024 varied from less than 1 percent to 66 percent, depending on the country, with median coverage at 14 percent, our POLITICO Europe colleagues report.
Denmark led the way among sexagenarians, with uptake at 44 percent, and among septuagenarians, at 81 percent. Sweden, much criticized among U.S. disease specialists for its laissez-faire approach to the pandemic, has the highest vaccination rate among people 80 and older at 94 percent.
But many other EU countries have numbers more like those in the U.S. and potentially much lower, since the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control data doesn’t include people under 60, except those with chronic health conditions or who work in health care.
Most European countries no longer say healthy people under 60 should get vaccinated.
In the U.S., the latest CDC data says that about 14 percent of all adults have gotten a shot recently, so uptake rates in countries including Austria, France and Italy could now be lower than in America.
The EU’s largest country, Germany, didn’t report data.
Source: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/future-pulse/2024/10/31/rooting-out-race-science-00186354
