Xenoma Galicia, the Sergas research project launched last October, is preparing to take its first steps. An “exciting, ambitious, unique” initiative, in the words of the Minister of Health, Antonio Gómez Caamaño, which aims to collect genetic material from Galician men and women for the study and progress in the detection of factors of risk in the genes. The aim is to improve prevention not only against diseases such as various types of cancer, but also against fractures such as hip fractures, for example, by identifying which people are most likely to suffer from them. Next week, the program will begin its pilot phase and residents of fifteen municipalities will be able to receive an SMS asking them to participate in the first phase, which consists of a blood test, with which they will contribute to the start.
This Thursday, Carmen Durán, Director General of Public Health, was alongside the city councilor during a presentation evening in Santiago. As explained, initially, only blood samples will be taken, from the 14th, because this is the “most difficult” part. The next one will be the salivary extract, planned for 2025 and which can be produced independently. For now, the machinery is in motion: “invitation, sample collection… the objective [del piloto] “It tests the logistics and, to a large extent, the participation,” says Durán.
The target population will be between 35 and 70 years old, although “calculations” will be added so that it is representative of factors such as gender or age group, but also of Galician “idiosyncrasy”, so that it will appeal to the inhabitants of the city. urban, semi-urban and rural councils. There will be two urban ones, from which 140 people will ultimately be chosen: La Coruña and Vigo; four semi-urban, with 280: Valdoviño, A Illa de Arousa, Vilaboa and Brión; and nine rural ones, with 630, including O Pino, Dumbría, Lousame, O Corgo, Pantón, Xove and San Cibrao das Viñas; which brought together nearly a thousand participants.
Initially, there will be more guests, 2,000, of whom a screening will be carried out later. From next week, residents of the indicated municipalities will be able to receive an SMS on their mobile phone offering them the possibility of participating in the collection, which will take place on the morning of Saturday December 14 and in the morning of the 21st, once the quota of first day reached. Then, they will take place in the 14 Galician reference hospitals (levels 1 and 2 and regional) according to three time slots, between 8:00 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., and 35 participants per day will be served -except in Santiago, which will therefore do with 70-. A team of nurses and laboratory technicians from the different health zones will be responsible for carrying out the measurements, who will receive training.
For his part, the executive director of the Galician Public Foundation for Xenomic Medicine, Dr. Ángel Carracedo, who also participated in the event, lives with “great joy” the formal presentation of the pilot of an “extremely ambitious” project “. There are other similar initiatives in Europe, the United States or places in Asia, such as Singapore, but it is worth emphasizing that this one is “the largest” in terms of the percentage of the population to which it is addresses: with a long-term view, of the 2.7 million Galicians who live in the Community, proposes to obtain genetic information from 400,000 and to preserve, for study in a gene bank, 100,000 biological samples. All this, anticipated the expert during his explanation, according to the “most rigid” criteria of ethics and legality in questions such as the information provided to the participant, the assurance of his decision-making and the total anonymization of its data.
Because the screening which is starting now “is only one part”, recalls Carracedo, of a “much larger” project which aims to reduce the overall risks of these diseases, “not at the family level, but at on a global scale”, based on investigations of all this genetic material; again, representative of a much larger part of the Galician population, proportionally, than that of any other similar initiative. And it is a question that, he adds, would also place Galicia “at the forefront” economically, scientifically, medically and in research. “This is a historic moment of opportunity, on a global scale,” to compete with other powers, he said, mentioning Singapore again. But to do this, he insisted that it must be understood as a “country” project, which is above “political questions” and in which various administrations, institutions and authorities join hands.
