Mexico - Instituto Carlos Slim de la Salud (The Carlos Slim Health Institute) invested to research the causes of diabetes, cancer, and kidney disease among Mexicans.

With an investment of $65 million, Instituto Carlos Slim de la Salud (ICSS) launched a research project to find the genetic causes of the propensity of Mexicans to diabetes and certain types of cancer.

Miguel Betancourt, Global Solutions Director of the ICSS, explained that during the past two years, the project has succeeded in forming a network of 14 research institutions, which are analyzing 6,000 DNA samples of Mexicans with diabetes, cancer, and kidney diseases.

The purpose of the project is to find the causes of diseases and to then find partners in the pharmaceutical industry, especially in biotechnology laboratories, to produce specific treatments for Mexicans.

Since the start of the project, the ICSS has found genetic defects in Mexicans that make them more susceptible to cellular mutations that trigger certain types of cancer - such as breast cancer - as well as diabetes.

Fifty researchers work at the genomics research project, however, Betancourt said it will take at least 10 years to see this research become a new drug or vaccine.

The Institute also aims to make teachers out of genomics experts, to help direct and train new generations of health professionals in Mexico.

According to Lilly, the world's 10th largest pharmaceutical laboratory, a greater focus of personalized medicine research can give better results than the current model for the clinical development of drugs.

The company said that in Spain, the current model of drug development is in crisis. Increasingly more resources are being invested to get new drugs that are rendering less than satisfactory results. Twelve years of work and an investment of more than one million dollars are necessary to develop drugs that rarely have more than 70% efficiency.

The human genome project, endowed with $280 billion dollars, was founded in 1990 by the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health of the United States, under the direction of James D. Watson, with a deadline of completion of 15 years. They succeeded in decoding after 13 years.