Personalized medicine

Key people

• Joshua C. DennyAmerican professor of biomedical informatics
• Roy S. HerbstAmerican oncologist

Timeline

• 2013The new technology must be assessed for both clinical and cost effectiveness, and as of 2013, regulatory agencies had no standardized method.
• 2014As of early 2014, over 1,300 GWA studies have been completed.
• 2015On February 19, 2015, FDA issued a press release titled: "FDA permits marketing of first direct-to-consumer genetic carrier test for Bloom syndrome.

Read

• The language of lifeFrancis S. Collins · 2009Book
• Advancing Healthcare Through Personalized MedicinePriya Hays · 2017Book
• Identity, invention, and the culture of personalized medicine patentingShubha Ghosh · 2012Book
• Lung Cancer and Personalized MedicineAamir Ahmad · 2015Book

Watch

• Artificial intelligence in healthcare: opportunities and challenges | Navid Toosi Saidy | TEDxQUTYouTube
• Unlocking Health Your Genetic Key to Personalized MedicineYouTube
• Frontiers in Medicine 2024 | Precision Mental Health: Personalizing TreatmentsYouTube
• Precision Medicine Revolution Personalized Treatment Plans*YouTube
• Leanne Williams, Stanford - Stanford Medicine Big Data | Precision Health 2018YouTube
• How Do Family Medical Records Guide Precision Medicine Decisions? - Genetic Wellness for FamiliesYouTube
• 4 Ways Artificial Intelligence is Transforming HealthcareYouTube
• MMP100 - Ryan Lester on a Full Baseline Assessment For Precision MedicineYouTube
• The Promise of Precision MedicineYouTube
• 54gene - Equalizing Precision Medicine: The 54gene StoryYouTube

Listen

• The Promise of Personalized MedicinePerry DimasPodcast
• Personalized Medicine PodcastOleksandr YagenskyPodcast
• RADIUMRadiumPodcast
• Medicine PersonalizedMedicine PersonalizedPodcast

Voices to follow

• Joshua C. Denny@AllofUsCEO · XAmerican professor of biomedical informatics
• Volodymyr Kuleshov@Volokuleshov · XUkrainian-American artificial intelligence researcher

By the numbers

• 73.5Global life expectancy (yrs) — global, 2024 (World Bank)
• 10.1Health spend (% GDP) — global, 2023 (World Bank)

Debates

• Should personalized medicine be widely accessible despite high initial costs?One view: The high cost of personalized treatments makes them inaccessible to many, exacerbating health inequalities. · Another: Investing in personalized medicine now will drive down costs over time and lead to more effective, preventive care for all.Open question
• How should individual genetic data be balanced between privacy and research advancement?One view: Strict privacy regulations are essential to protect individuals from potential discrimination or misuse of their sensitive genetic information. · Another: Sharing anonymized or aggregated genetic data is crucial for accelerating research, discovering new treatments, and benefiting public health.Open question
• Are the ethical implications of extensive genetic screening outweighed by its benefits?One view: Widespread genetic screening could lead to difficult ethical dilemmas, such as decisions about preimplantation genetic diagnosis or potential for genetic discrimination. · Another: Genetic screening empowers individuals with knowledge about their health risks, enabling proactive prevention, early intervention, and personalized lifestyle choices.Open question

Glossary

• Personalized MedicineMedical treatment tailored to each patient's unique genetic makeup, environment, and lifestyle.
• GenomicsThe study of an organism's entire set of DNA, including all of its genes and their interactions.
• BiomarkerA measurable indicator of a biological state, such as a disease, infection, or environmental exposure.
• PharmacogenomicsThe study of how genes affect a person's response to drugs, guiding personalized drug selection and dosing.
• BioinformaticsThe science of collecting, storing, and analyzing complex biological data, often used in genomics research.
• Precision MedicineAn approach to disease treatment and prevention that accounts for individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle.

Careers

Roles this can lead toward

Student research

Published policy papers by One Young India delegates — every delegate leaves published under their own name.

• Beyond the Genome: Dynamic Epigenetics and the Future of Precision MedicineShaan Soni
• The Role of Mental Health in Shaping Young Adults’ Positive Attitude and Emotions for Holistic Development: The India ScenarioAmartya Krishnaditya
• Universal Healthcare- Best Practices around the World and in IndiaSyed Fazil Shariq SA

Threads 5

Where this connects to other fields — and why it's worth knowing.

• Credentialing & the Future of School Education

  A college degree is a rough guess that you've got the right skills, the way an average dose is a rough guess for the average patient. Skills-based hiring and precision medicine both ditch the crude average and look at your actual, measured traits instead. Both bet that real evidence about you beats a stand-in for 'people like you.'

• Race & Ethnicity Sociology

  Some medicines are still dosed 'by race,' but race is a social label, not a genetic readout, and it stands in badly for the actual DNA variants that change how a drug works. Two people of the same race can carry totally different versions of the gene that matters. Leaning on the label instead of the genes can send treatment the wrong way.

• Rights & Liberties Law

  If your boss or insurer could read your genetic risk scores, they might refuse to hire or cover you over an illness you don't even have yet. To stop that, lawmakers had to invent a brand-new kind of protection, making your DNA something you can't legally be punished for. Your genome became a civil rights frontier.

• Causal Inference & Experiments Mathematics

  A big drug trial tells you a pill helps people on average. But precision medicine points out there's no such thing as the 'average patient' sitting in the room, only this specific person with their own genes. So doctors get caught in a tug-of-war between what worked for the crowd and what will actually work for you.

• Biodiversity Loss Environment

  A huge share of our medicines started as molecules found in wild plants, fungi, and animals. So every time a species goes extinct, we might be burning a book we never read, one that held the cure for a disease we haven't even faced yet. Losing biodiversity can mean losing medicine that was never invented.