Success stories in genomic medicine from resource-limited countries

Konstantinos Mitropoulos, Hayat Al Jaibeji, Diego A. Forero, Paul Laissue, Ambroise Wonkam, Catalina Lopez-Correa, Zahurin Mohamed, Wasun Chantratita, Ming Ta Michael Lee, Adrian Llerena, Angela Brand, Bassam R. Ali, George P. Patrinos

In recent years, the translation of genomic discoveries into mainstream medical practice and public health has gained momentum, facilitated by the advent of new technologies. However, there are often major discrepancies in the pace of implementation of genomic medicine between developed and developing/resource-limited countries. The main reason does not only lie in the limitation of resources but also in the slow pace of adoption of the new findings and the poor understanding of the potential that this new discipline offers to rationalize medical diagnosis and treatment. Here, we present and critically discuss examples from the successful implementation of genomic medicine in resource-limited countries, focusing on pharmacogenomics, genome informatics, and public health genomics, emphasizing in the latter case genomic education, stakeholder analysis, and economics in pharmacogenomics. These examples can be considered as model cases and be readily replicated for the wide implementation of pharmacogenomics and genomic medicine in other resource-limited environments.