World Asthma Day (WAD) takes place each year on the first Tuesday in May. The annual event, organized by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA), raises asthma awareness and care around the world. Continuing last year’s positive theme, the WAD 2012 theme is “You Can Control Your Asthma”. The campaign emphasizes asthma control as described in the latest version of the GINA guideline documents [1]. Asthma control is also the focus of GINA’s Asthma Control Challenge, a five-year campaign to reduce asthma hospitalizations worldwide by fifty percent.
World Asthma Day is an annual event organized by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). The event raises awareness about asthma and works to improve asthma care around the world. This year’s theme is “You Can Control Your Asthma”. It aims to continue the focus on asthma control described in the latest version of the GINA guidelines [1].
Welcome to the 32nd edition of Gene Genie, a blog carnival devoted to genes and genetic conditions. This edition includes some excellent articles on genes and gene-related diseases, genetics, genomics and personalized genetics.
Google Health launched publicly this week and to recognize the event, the last section of the carnival is devoted to articles specifically about the service. Google, financial backer of 23andMe, also funds the Personal Genome Project, which plans to unlock the secrets of common diseases by decoding the DNA of 100,000 people in the world’s biggest gene sequencing project [1]. With the vast number of genetic data points collected for each genome sequenced, a digital system for the movement and storage of personal health information is critical for the widespread use of individualized healthcare. Google’s entrance into the online personal health records market may thus help to accelerate the era of personalized medicine.
With these thoughts in mind, let’s get to this month’s edition of the Genie.
