Opinion: A better understanding of human diversity is needed to equitably advance precision medicine
Precision medicine — tailoring a treatment to an individual’s disease — requires understanding the individual’s biological characteristics. Although medicine and biotech are making significant progress in this area, they have historically been limited by few genetic samples and insights from patients of diverse backgrounds, particularly in therapeutic categories including cardiometabolism, inflammation, and other diseases with a disproportionate incidence among underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.
More than 80% of genomics studies have been conducted in people of European descent. If this imbalance is not fully addressed, a lack of diverse DNA sampling has the potential to hold back the pace of drug discovery and the development of, and more equitable access to, the promise of precision medicine.
