A group of researchers and leaders from Sanford Health were selected to participate in the “Third International Conference on the Progress of Regenerative Medicine and Its Cultural Impact,” and to receive the 2016 Pontifical Key Innovation Award at the Vatican in Rome.

The President of Sanford Research, Dr. David Pearce was among the Sanford Health experts invited to present at the conference

Pearce says there are numerous diseases that are classified as rare, and difficult to treat

Pearce says one of the “newer” efforts to help in the study of rare diseases is personalized medicine

Pearce says doctors working with rare diseases have looked at personalized medicine for a number of years. He says doctors now have the ability to look at the human genome code, and see exactly what contributed to the disease, which is something that wasn’t available 10 years ago.