University of Waterloo's pharmacy school director will discuss how standard medications can pose risks Source: University of Waterloo, release no. 3 WATERLOO, Ont. (Monday, Jan. 8, 2007) -- The inaugural director of the University of Waterloo's new school of pharmacy and health sciences campus will outline how medications designed for the 'standard patient' may expose individual patients to unnecessary risk. In a lecture on Wednesday, Jan. 24, Jake Thiessen will explore how drug development and application have largely been built on the concept of the average Joe. Thiessen's lecture, entitled Why Not Bring Medications and Their Uses Out of the Dark Ages?, will reveal how the new notion of personalized medicine could avoid further illness and save lives. "An average molecule, an average biology, an average patient, an average disease, an average route of medication administration, an average health-care professional, an average treatment plan and an average contentment with average outcomes," he says. "How long society can tolerate averages and is there an alternative?" "We are just beginning a journey whose destination is personalized medicine," says Dominic Covvey, the founding director of Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research (WIHIR). "The new school of pharmacy at UW, and Dr. Thiessen in particular, are in the vanguard of efforts to deliver the fruits of genomic and proteomic research to the bedside and the physician's office for the benefit of us all. So, Dr. Thiessen is perfect as our series kick-off speaker and his topic is of great import and the ideal one for us to learn about." This lecture launches the annual smarter-health seminar series, sponsored by WIHIR. The UW-based institute will dedicate the fifth year of its series to the theme Why Not? The question is the catchphrase for UW's 50th anniversary, celebrated throughout 2007. The series will examine such questions as: Why not use the promise of information and communications technologies to improve health and the health-care system in Canada? Why not rethink how we provide health care? Why not do more to make it possible to receive health care at home or in the community? Speakers will include Canadian Senator Michael Kirby; Tom Closson, retired president and CEO of University Health Network; Geoffrey Fong, UW professor of psychology; Vimla Patel, professor of biomedical informatics and psychiatry at Columbia University; and Octo Barnett, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School as well as senior research director at Massachusetts General Hospital. All presentations will be held at 3 p.m. on the fourth Wednesday of each month in the William G. Davis Centre, room 1302, on the UW campus. The seminars are open to the public and admission is free. However, people are asked to register prior to each seminar. For more information and to register, visit http://hi.uwaterloo.ca. For those who cannot travel, the seminars are available via live webcasts, and there is an opportunity to ask questions of the speakers. Health informatics is an interdisciplinary area that develops, extends and applies concepts from computer science, information science, telecommunications and other disciplines with the goal of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of health care. WIHIR is a trans-disciplinary institute at the University of Waterloo delivering value to the health system through information, information management, and information and communication technologies research. -30- Contacts: Shirley Fenton, WIHIR managing director, 519-888-4074 John Morris, UW media relations, 519-888-4435 University of Waterloo release no. 3 Get Abobe Acrobat Reader. It's free.

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