Excerpt
SUMMARY: Researchers in the San Francisco Bay area believe genetic tests will help them find the best ways to treat and potentially prevent diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, breast and prostate cancers. Spencer Michels reports on a giant data bank that houses genetic information on 200,000 people as part of a groundbreaking study.
SPENCER MICHELS (Newshour): Every year, 240,000 men in America learn that they have prostate cancer. Reggie Watkins, a retired parole officer and a patient at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., is one of them.
REGGIE WATKINS, Kaiser Patient: The first biopsy showed a slight cancer, slight amount of cancer. The second biopsy showed no cancer. I do think there's a genetic situation in my family. I'm not the only and my brother is not the only one in the family to have this problem.
SPENCER MICHELS: Until recently, Watkins' family history and his unique genetic makeup would have played a minor role, if any, in his medical care. But thanks in part to a massive, groundbreaking new study under way at Kaiser and the University of California, San Francisco, information gleaned from patients' genes may prove the key to identifying and treating a host of diseases.
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