Learn more about Carolina through the following quick questions:
Hi Carolina. What do you do at GenomSys, and what are you currently working on?
I’m responsible for Business Development at GenomSys. Together with a great team, I am dedicated to realizing business opportunities to bring GenomSys unique products to the market and develop collaborations with different entities to advance personalized medicine. I love interacting with various players in the genomics space and learning every day more and more about this new, growing, and exciting segment of healthcare.
What is your take on personalized medicine and what role does GenomSys play in that?
Working for quite a long time in the healthcare industry, I think I have a privileged view of what is happening in healthcare and medicine overall. I hope that with my previously acquired knowledge, I can contribute to the advancement of personalized medicine. My definition for this evolution of medicine is the proactive participation (of citizens, patients, physicians, providers, institutions, companies, etc.) in the care process enabled by an ecosystem of technologies and services that leverage digital data to provide precise insights. These could then support – in real-time – the prevention and treatment decision-making strategies and help improve health worldwide.
I believe that GenomSys, with its solutions for professionals and citizens, is the right place to be for advancing the realization of personalized medicine.
What is the most significant benefit of the ISO-certified standard for genomic data (MPEG-G) that is at the core of any of GenomSys products, in your opinion?
Genomics is a fast-growing discipline and it is “producing” an unprecedented amount of data that professionals should at, interpret, store and share to define new correlations between our genes and diseases and deliver to patients personalized medicine. The genomic workflow is complex and involves different practitioners, informatics and bioinformatics, and patients who then benefit from tailored diagnostic and treatment approaches. In this context, the efficient storage and transmission of genomic data are thus becoming of utmost importance. The new international standard MPEG-G provides substantial benefits to professionals, such as the possibility to access and share selectively and in a more rapid fashion genomic information, a powerful high compression benefit especially relevant concerning storage costs for the steady increase of genomic data, built-in data protection granting genomic data and patients’ data privacy.
All those features, for example, enabling a faster sharing of genomic information between research institutions, will contribute to the advancement of personalized medicine.
Genomic data and data privacy challenges. What is, in your opinion, a way to solve this issue?
Direct-to-consumer (DtC) genetic testing has become very popular in the last couple of years; however, DtC genetic tests have thus far limited legal regulations in place. The growth of the DtC industry in genetics results in vast consumers’ genetic information databases, raising serious privacy concerns. Some companies started having more robust privacy and informed consent policies; nevertheless, unaligned and vague regulations hardly prohibit companies from sharing individuals’ genetic information with third parties (and the situation is very fragmented from country to country).
Why did you join GenomSys?
I see great potential in what GenomSys is doing and a disruptive value proposition. Further, I believe that nowadays, innovations are popping up at a faster pace – at least valid for specific fields – with smaller companies and startups at the epicenter of this and I wanted to be part of it.
When you’re not increasing further business for GenomSys, what do you do in your free time?
I’m a mum of 4 years old baby boy, and I enjoy discovering the world with him very much! We love visiting new places, doing sports, and enjoy outdoor activities in nature.
Do you listen to podcasts or do you prefer reading books? What are you currently listening to/ reading?
I prefer reading books, but right now I’m mainly reading books for children to my son. I should admit that books for children provide good lessons also to adults! As an example, we just finished a book about environmental consciousness that reminds us how much we are connected and dependent on nature through the adventures of a little girl.
Do you have a favorite chromosome and why is this your favorite one?
I would say that my favorite chromosome is number 2. There are pieces of evidence supporting the theory that chromosome 2 was formed following the fusion of two chromosomes inherited from our primate ancestors. Chimpanzees still have the two ancestral halves of chromosome 2, confirming important components of the theory of evolution.
Find the paper on the vicinity of humans and chimps here.
What is your favorite base in the DNA (adenine, guanine, cytosine, or thymine)?
Well, I would go for adenine because I remember an interesting story about adenine, as one of the biological building blocks found in meteorites by NASA scientists, providing new evidence of chemistry in space.
Find the official news by NASA here.
If you have any further questions for Carolina or about GenomSys, please feel free to contact us.
1Auton A, Brooks LD, Durbin RM, Garrison EP, Kang HM, Korbel JO, et al. (October 2015). “A global reference for human genetic variation”. Nature. 526 (7571): 68–74. Bibcode:2015Natur.526…68T. doi:10.1038/nature15393. PMC 4750478. PMID 26432245.
Picture: chrisreadingfoto / pixabay
