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Even when the same drug is used for the same disease, the response to treatment varies, depending on the country and race. A study explaining this phenomenon, focusing on the immune diversity of Asians, is attracting attention.
Dr. Park Woong-yang, director of the Samsung Genome Institute. (Courtesy of Samsung Medical Center)
Dr. Park Woong-yang, director of the Samsung Genome Institute. (Courtesy of Samsung Medical Center)
Samsung Medical Center said Monday that its Asian Immune Diversity Atlas (AIDA) research team, led by Dr. Park Woong-yang, director of the Samsung Genome Institute, has published a study in the international journal Cell that characterizes the immune cells of Asians.
It is the first study to analyze the immune cells of Asian countries, including Korea, Singapore, Japan, Thailand, and India, at the single-cell level.
AIDA is a multi-country initiative supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), founded by Mr. and Mrs. Zuckerberg, the founders of Meta. The idea is that by building a single-cell database to understand how genetic factors affect disease, they can ultimately find a way to overcome it.
Using state-of-the-art genomic analysis technology, scRNA-seq, the team analyzed more than 1.26 million immune cells. These cells were taken from the blood of 619 healthy individuals. The study included seven populations across five countries: Koreans, Japanese, Indians, Thais, and Singapore-based Chinese, Malaysians, and Indians.
Single-cell analysis is a cutting-edge technology that has recently garnered attention as the way forward for the future of medicine. Previous analyses could only guess at the disease due to the mixture of many cells, but with the advent of this technology, it is possible to understand the role and interaction of each cell. This allows for a more precise understanding of the disease and the direction of treatment.
According to the study, Koreans have the lowest proportion of regulatory T cells, which control the immune response to protect the body from invading germs, among Asians surveyed.
When these cells are deficient, the immune response is overactive, leading to autoimmune diseases.
Alopecia areata is one of them. It occurs when the body mistakes hair cells for enemies and tries to attack them. T-cells are also relatively low, which means that if you have fewer T-cells, you are more likely to respond poorly to treatment, even with immuno-oncology drugs.
The researchers explained that other key cells analyzed, such as B cells and NK cells, showed similar trends without significant differences.
Japanese and Singaporean Chinese had a more balanced immune cell composition, close to the overall average, while Singaporean Malays had more B cells. Indians were found to have relatively low levels of NK cells, and Thais had low levels of myeloid cells.
The team said this suggests that the approach to disease may need to be different in the future depending on the country and race.
“In the next phase of the study, we plan to expand the AIDA resources further and conduct single-cell genomic analysis in more Asian populations,” said Dr. Shyam Prabhakar, deputy director of the Singapore Genome Institute and Principal Investigator of AIDA. “We expect to contribute to the advancement of precision medicine.”
Director Park said, “By revealing key information about the genetic characteristics of Asian populations, including Koreans, we can gain an Asian perspective rather than that of the U.S. or Europe. “We have laid the foundation for Korea to lead the way in single-cell analysis technology, which will be the foundation of future medicine.”
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Kim Kyoung-Won kkw97@docdocdoc.co.kr
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