Precision medicine can be defined as personalized medicine enhanced by technology. In the past, medicine has, in some cases, been personalized. For example, some drugs are dosed on an individualized basis based on age, body-mass index, comorbidities and other clinical parameters. However, overall, medicine has largely followed the ‘one-size-fits-all' paradigm as exemplified in the treatment of essential hypertension or type 2 diabetes mellitus. What has changed in the past few years is that technologies such as high throughput sequencing, mass spectrometry, microfluidics, and imaging can help conduct a multitude of complex measurements on clinical samples. Aided by analytics, these technologies have been providing an increasingly detailed picture of molecular and cellular alterations underlying numerous diseases and have revealed tremendous variability between individuals and patients at the molecular and cellular level. These findings have motivated a more personalized or ‘precision' approach to medicine, in which molecular and cellular markers help tailor patient management to each individual. Here we provide an overview of the key factors driving adoption of precision medicine and highlight current research that may soon make precision medicine more predictive.
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September 2020
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Cover Image
This issue of Emerging Topics in Life Sciences is guest edited by Richard Reece, and celebrates 10 years of the Royal Society of Biology. The cover features a photograph submitted by Claire Kremen, who's article discusses how the silvopastoral system in Colombia restores connectivity to landscapes and improves conditions for biodiversity while providing cattle farmers with improved productivity and profitability. Photograph by Andrés Felipe Zuluaga Salazar, The Nature Conservancy.
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August 28 2020
The future of precision medicine: towards a more predictive personalized medicine Available to Purchase
Olivier Elemento
Caryl and Israel Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10021, U.S.A
Correspondence: Olivier Elemento ([email protected])
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Publisher: Portland Press Ltd
Received:
July 02 2020
Revision Received:
August 09 2020
Accepted:
August 10 2020
Online ISSN: 2397-8562
Print ISSN: 2397-8554
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Portland Press Limited on behalf of the Biochemical Society and the Royal Society of Biology
2020
Emerg Top Life Sci (2020) 4 (2): 175–177.
Article history
Received:
July 02 2020
Revision Received:
August 09 2020
Accepted:
August 10 2020
Citation
Olivier Elemento; The future of precision medicine: towards a more predictive personalized medicine. Emerg Top Life Sci 8 September 2020; 4 (2): 175–177. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/ETLS20190197
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