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Toward Precision Medicine Building a Knowledge Network for Biomedical Research and a New Taxonomy of Disease (2011) / Chapter Skim
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5 Epilogue
Pages 75-80

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 75...
... Her physician knows the molecular details of the pathological processes that threaten her life and has at her command therapies that directly target the aberrant molecular events occurring in Patient 1's cells. The safety and efficacy of these therapies have been confirmed by randomized clinical tri als involving other patients well matched with Patient 1 in the molecular details of their disease.
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From page 76...
... The Committee believes that the best prospects for creating a similarly bright future for Patient 2 lies in achieving a similarly precise understanding of his disease by creating a Knowledge Network of Dis ease and an associated New Taxonomy. The Committee recognized two key points about its charge: first, develop ment of an improved disease taxonomy is only one facet, albeit an important one, of the challenge of leveraging advances in biomedical research to achieve better health outcomes for patients; secondly, no single stream of activity -- led by any single segment of the biomedical research community -- can tackle even this limited goal on its own.
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From page 77...
... Sequence similarity between genes studied in fruit flies and those studied in humans allows nearly instant recognition of the potential medical relevance of the most basic advances in biochemistry and cell biology. Increasingly, this process also works in reverse: unusual human patients call attention to molecules and biochemical pathways whose importance in basic biology had been overlooked or was otherwise inaccessible.
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From page 78...
... Information technology, quite simply, has made the rise of data-intensive biology possible: molecular biology, as now practiced, could not exist without modern computing systems. In medicine, information technology offers perhaps the best hope of increasing efficiency and improv ing our collective learning about what works and what does not.
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From page 79...
... Accurately and precisely defining a patient's condition does not assure effective treatment, but it is unequivocally the place to start. Hence, in exploiting the convergent forces acting throughout the health-care system, a long-term focus on developing the new informational resources proposed in this report would be a powerful unifying principle for biomedical researchers, physicians, patients, and all stakeholders in this vast enterprise.
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Key Terms

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  • molecular details
  • public investment
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  • breast cancer
  • pilot projects
  • information commons
  • research subject
  • directly target

  • particularly dramatic
  • distressingly typical
  • organized effort
  • humans allows
  • potential framework

  • immediate consensus
  • similarly precise
  • molecular pathology
  • moving forward
  • associated blurring

  • lead relatively
  • medical relevance
  • molecular analyses
  • increasing emphasis
  • daunting task

  • insidiously toxic
  • human diseases
  • public attitudes
  • genes studied
  • modern computing


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