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

SCL Health Announces Precision Oncology Partnership With Strata Oncology
SCL Health (@SCLHealth) continues to build on its commitment to person-centered care and transforming the patient experience through innovative and cutting-edge cancer care. Strata Oncology, Inc. (@StrataOncology) is a precision medicine company dedicated to transforming cancer care by building a platform to systematize precision oncology across a network of health systems. By partnering with the Strata Precision Oncology Networkâ„¢ (the Network), SCL Health will be able to provide the benefits of the latest technology and clinical research in precision oncology to patients across Colorado and Montana.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Announces Collaboration to Develop Advanced Analytical Workflows for Clinical Laboratories
Thermo Fisher Scientific (@thermofisher), the world leader in serving science, and Cedars-Sinai (@CedarsSinai), a leading nonprofit academic healthcare organization, have entered into a collaboration to develop a pathway to precision medicine through the development of robust, reliable and sensitive liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based workflows for clinical research applications.

Precision Medicine: Making Sense of the Healthcare Data Deluge for Personalized Care
The All of Us research program, CAR-T therapies, increasingly accessible genetic testing, and other applications for new medical data are all starting to make the concept of precision medicine a reality. As these new data-driven, personalized treatment plans begin to enter clinical practice in specialty care settings such as oncology and mental health, it is time to assess the limits of current health IT ecosystems to broader clinical adoption, and where the opportunities lie for innovative solutions to bring precision medicine into the mainstream. In a new report, Precision Medicine and Health IT: New Data, New Challenges, Chilmark Research (@ChilmarkHIT) examines the current hurdles to integrating an exponentially growing amount of data from a wide variety of novel -omics sources into clinically actionable insights for personalized care plans and more effective population health management.

Q-State Biosciences and 2bPrecise Announce Partnership
Q-State Biosciences and 2bPrecise (@2bPrecise) will partner to build robust clinical-genomic datasets enabling healthcare providers to better leverage precision medicine when treating patients with genetic conditions. The collaboration will facilitate the advance of novel insights that health systems can incorporate to improve clinical practice and that pharmaceutical companies can use in the development of new therapies.

PHDA Teams Up with Amazon Web Services to Improve Patient Care Through Machine Learning
In the latest sign of Pittsburgh’s growing importance as a center of health care technology innovation, Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance (@HealthDataPGH) announced that the Alliance is working closely with Amazon Web Services (AWS) (@awscloud), an Amazon.com company, through a machine learning research sponsorship, to advance innovation in areas such as cancer diagnostics, precision medicine, voice-enabled technologies and medical imaging.

Listen

From The Tate Chronicles, host Jim Tate’s guest is Dr. Bryant Gilot is the Chief Medical Officer at Blockchain Health & Center for Personalized Medicine. He is a cardiac surgeon with a demonstrated history of working in the computer software industry and is an expert in crypto currency and medical devices. He holds a Masters of Science in Digital Currency from The University of Nicosia.

To Read

Events

All of Us Research Program

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.

Resources

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.