Precision Medicine Under the Microscope

We are on the beat to find and report just what is happening now in Precision Medicine. Look for this on going report each month as we find articles, commentary, interviews, and events of interest on Precision Medicine. Read more posts on Precision Medicine and follow the hashtag #PrecisionMedicine.

The US National Library of Medicine says “although the term ‘precision medicine’ is relatively new, the concept has been a part of healthcare for many years. For example, a person who needs a blood transfusion is not given blood from a randomly selected donor; instead, the donor’s blood type is matched to the recipient to reduce the risk of complications. Although examples can be found in several areas of medicine, the role of precision medicine in day-to-day healthcare is relatively limited. Researchers hope that this approach will expand to many areas of health and healthcare in coming years.”

What is the difference between precision medicine and personalized medicine? What about pharmacogenomics?

According to the NIH US National Libarary of Medicine, National Research Council, there is a lot of overlap between the terms. Learn more.

Precision Medicine in Action

The ONC Interoperability Proving Ground – Sync for Genes Phase 2
The ONC IPG is an open, community platform where you can share, learn, and be inspired by interoperability projects occurring in the United States and around the world. Sync for Genes Phase 2 is based on the advances made by the Sync for Genes pilot programs, ONC, in partnership with NIH, will continue this important work to help advance genomics standardization in FHIR in a second phase of this project. We expect phase 2 to focus on expanding on the profile work to more fully support the integration of genomics information and clinical information, and to work on additional core use cases from the Domain Analysis Model.

Fitango Health Announces the Fitango Oncology™ Precision Medicine Platform for Oncology and Chronic Care Providers
Fitango Health (@FitangoHealth), a global provider of integrated care management and patient engagement software, is announcing a transformative new solution, called Fitango Oncology™ at the 2018 ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) Annual Meeting in Chicago. This end-to-end solution is the first of its kind for both oncology and chronic care to integrate decision-support, treatment communication, along with enabling and engaging both patients and their families to be informed and involved throughout their journey.

2bPrecise and PierianDx Collaborate to Deliver a Comprehensive Precision Medicine Solution
2bPrecise®, LLC (@2bPrecise), an EHR-agnostic, cloud-based precision medicine platform, announced it is collaborating with PierianDx, Inc. (@pieriandx), the leading clinical genomics knowledgebase company, to offer a comprehensive precision medicine solution that combines genomic and clinical data to help providers make precise decisions at the point of care.

Listen

CTO Talk on HealthcareNOW Radio
Tune in to HealthcareNOW Radio at 7:00am, 3:00pm and 11:00pm ET weekday through June 25th for CTO Talk (#CTOTalk). Host Matt Ferrari discusses the issues, challenges, and opportunities transforming healthcare technology today, all from the CTO point of view. Matt’s current guest is Glenda Anderson, CEO, Farsight Genome Systems discussing how precision medicine is benefiting from the cloud. Speeding the time to market from genomics research and testing to clinicians providing patient care.

Conversations on Healthcare
Biology’s New Frontier: The Human Cell Atlas Seeks To Create “Google Maps” for All Cells in the Body
Hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Aviv Regev of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Dr. Sarah Teichmann of the Wellcome Sanger Institute at Cambridge, Co-Chairs of the Human Cell Atlas project which is seeking to create a “Google Maps” for the body’s 37 trillion cells. It’s a global collaboration of multiple scientific disciplines, tasked with creating a comprehensive and open-source cell map, to yield a deeper understanding of the foundational elements of human health and disease.

Precision Medicine Initiative

The National Library of Medicine also tells us the “Precision Medicine Initiative is a long-term research endeavor, involving the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and multiple other research centers, which aims to understand how a person’s genetics, environment, and lifestyle can help determine the best approach to prevent or treat disease.” The Initiative has both short and long term goals.

Realizing the Promise of Precision Medicine: The Role of Patient Data, Mobile Technology, and Consumer Engagement
1st Edition, by Paul Cerrato and John Halamka

This book by industry superstars explains the potential of personalized medicine and the value of those approaches in making that potential a reality. The book helps transform one-size-fits-all healthcare into a system that focuses on individual needs and the unique needs of each family member, discussing topics such as U.S. sponsored precision medicine initiative, genomics, the role of electronic health records and mobile medicine, patient engagement and empowerment, health information exchange and patient data protection.

Hear Paul and John discuss the book and the promise of precision medicine on This Just In with host Justin Barnes.

Resources & Events

2018 BIO International Convention
June 4-7 in Boston, MA – News and Updates
Hashtag: #BIO2018
Hosted by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO). BIO represents more than 1,100 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations across the United States and in more than 30 other nations.

The Journal of Precision Medicine (@JournPrecMed)
The world’s first print publication to discuss the many key global issues surrounding this rapidly evolving landscape. It does so by connecting both ends of the life science continuum – the compelling discoveries being realized in molecular research with the critical needs of the patient in the clinical setting.

The Personalized Medicine Coalition  (@permedcoalition)
PMC, representing innovators, scientists, patients, providers and payers, promotes the understanding and adoption of personalized medicine concepts, services and products to benefit patients and the health system.

Save the Date: 14th Annual Personalized Medicine Conference, November 14-15 2018 in Boston MA.