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LAIRD CENTER (PART 3)

Monday, October 13th, 2008 -- 8:49 AM

Hundreds of people were on hand Friday for the dedication of the $40-million Laird Center for Medical Research at the Marshfield Clinic.

The facility, named after former Defense Secretary, Republican Congressman and Marshfield native Melvin Laird, aims to get medical research findings to physicians and patients.

The Center will put Marshfield at the forefront of personalized medicine.

Researchers are learning more and more about the human gene. They believe they?ll be able to use that information to predict patients? susceptibility to diseases, and hopefully help them before it?s too late.

"We're going to have to specifically identify the best intervention at the best time at the right cost, or we'll never be able to control the cost of health care" explained Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the outgoing director of the National Institutes of Health.

"We have to be able to prevent you, on the basis on your own, unique genome, to prevent you from suffering unnecessarily."

Dr. Zerhouni didn?t mince words, saying the project represented a revolution in health care.

"200, 300 years from now, people will look back and say, 'what was the greatest thing of the early decade of the 21st Century': it's the human genome. The completion of the human genome will be seen as the greatest achievment of any country at that time of history."

The dedication was Zerhouni?s final official act as NIH director.

[url=http://www.genome.gov/]NIH Genome Page[/url]

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