Precision Tools
As a quarter century follower of personalized medicine, the recent progress and pronouncements on precision medicine are greatly appreciated. Despite extraordinary complexities new ‘omics...
SNPshot
It is, without doubt, an exciting time to be an oncologist or a cancer researcher. As our understanding continues to grow of the underlying...
Cognoscienti
In this inaugural issue of the Journal of Precision Medicine, we would like to draw attention to a decision-analytic concept that has grown prominent...
Field Notes
In late winter at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) scientific meeting in Marco Island, Fla., a coalition of 13 life science...
Field Notes
It’s a sad fact that most people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer feel their situation is hopeless. According to the National Cancer Institute, nearly 47,000...
Precision Tools
his year, on April 16th the Personalized Medicine World Conference (PMWC) made its debut in the UK. Attendee’s benefited from new insights behind the...
Precision Tools
With so much attention focused on new ways to collect, combine, and mine health data, it can be easy to overlook the critical need...
Precision Tools
Cancer is a complex, heterogeneous disease, driven by multiple molecular pathways. There are hundreds of known oncogenes, which arise in myriad combinations, making every...
20/20
Say what you will about J. Craig Venter – and opinions run the gamut from him being our generation’s greatest scientist to him also...
Cognoscienti
“Precision Medicine,” a new name for “molecular medicine,” has been the goal of medicine since the time of the Greeks. Medicine without scientific precision...
Cognoscienti
Of the many factors needed for the complete clinical uptake of personalized medicine and its use to improve health out comes, one of the...
Cognoscienti
We have reached a point where in the last 30 years your chance of surviving cancer has increased from 1 in 4 to roughly...
Field Notes
A collaboration between the Jackson Laboratory (JAX) and six academic centers has garnered a five-year, $10 million grant from the National Institutes of Health...
Field Notes
Werner Verbiest has spent the better part of the last 25 years in roles focused on designing better diagnostics for a range of diseases....
The Hub
Some life sciences clusters grow as a natural combination of academia and a critical mass of successful trailblazing companies. Others are built by intention...
Cognoscienti
President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative has refocused national attention on the ability of genomics and other emerging technologies to provide a better understanding of...
Cognoscienti
Targeted drugs that are tailored to biomarkers are most often developed or co-developed with a companion diagnostic to identify patients who are good responders....
Precision Tools
Precision Medicine necessitates continuously measuring the certainty with which the right patient receives the right treatment at the right time. Common clinical presentations are...
Precision Tools
Precision medicine is an emerging field whose relevance is destined to grow at a pace, that at least in part, depends on the concomitant...
Precision Tools
Since the seminal reports of the utility of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in evaluating a cancer patient’s response to...
Precision Tools
Advances in technology have allowed medical providers to customize healthcare with medical decisions, practices, and therapeutics being tailored to the individual patient. Through the...
SNPshot
It is, fair to say the field of immune-oncology is still in its infancy. But the concept of immune system activation as a means...
20/20
When you hear Soon-Shiong elucidate his vision of the future of healthcare and the development of new therapeutics, the holistic approach he intends to...
Cognoscienti
The current paradigm of modern healthcare is a reactive response to patient symptoms, subsequent diagnosis and corresponding treatment of the specific disease(s). This approach...
Cognoscienti
Precision medicine is often associated with oncology where the ability to screen and select patients based on a particular mutation is critical for use and...
Precision Tools
There is plenty of chatter surrounding ‘data driven discovery’ currently, yet do those authors, bloggers and conference speakers all talk of the same thing? Could...
Precision Tools
Targeted molecular therapies offer the hope that they can be used in any disease that carries the specific molecular aberration being targeted. Combining data on...
Cognoscienti
The Precision Medicine Initiative and a “Moonshot to Cure Cancer” were announced by President Barack Obama in two consecutive State of the Union addresses in January...
Precision Tools
The genomic revolution continues to deliver research and clinical breakthroughs (CRISPR/Cas, WGS) that suggest greater precision and prediction is just ahead. And despite extraordinary complexities proteomics...
Cognoscienti
The transformation of health care from one-size-fits-all, trial-and-error medicine to a targeted approach utilizing an individual patient’s molecular information continues to accelerate as the U.S. Food...
The Hub
It is well documented that within the historic walls of Cambridge University, Watson and Crick first made their discovery of the structure of DNA....
Cognoscienti
Diabetes is perceived as a “simple disease” and manifested in the form of inadequate blood glucose regulation. Paradoxically, it is now also recognized as a...
Field Notes
The International Genetics & Translational Research in Transplantation Network (iGENETRAiN) and commercial collaborator Affymetrix have together embarked on a genome-wide association study. The aim is to identify specific genetic variants that may...
Field Notes
PHOENIX – Research conducted at the Translational Genomics Institute (TGen) and the Barrow Neurological Institute has identified, for the first time, genes associated with stress-induced cardiomyopathy (SIC), a...
20/20
Most 10 year old kids don’t grow up with the use a full chemistry lab in the basement and a copy of ‘Fortunes Formula’ to help...
Field Notes
Pathway Genomics’ OME personalized wellness app leverages Watson’s cognitive computing In early January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Pathway Genomics announced the closed-alpha release of...
SNPshot
If Helen of Troy possessed the face that launched a thousand ships, it is not a stretch to say that the publication in the summer...
Cognoscienti
“The pharmaceutical industry is deeply committed to delivering on the promise of personalized medicine.” Ian Read, Pfizer CEO, National Press Club, Washington, DC, May 14, 2015.
Cognoscienti
Developing decision models to support comparative cost-effectiveness claims is now an accepted standard in submissions both to gatekeepers for single payer health systems as well as...
Field Notes
Over the last year, the U.S. FDA approved a flurry of new drugs for use in multiple myeloma, a cancer that affects the bone...
Precision Tools
Cancer treatment is no doubt the greatest of the big challenges in the newborn field of Precision Medicine. As an effect of advances in imaging...
Field Notes
Precision medicine seems tailored to the study of rare diseases: at least 80 percent of them arise from genetic variations, and (though not always the case) show varying...
Cognoscienti
Alzheimer’s disease is a complex, multi-faceted condition. Our understanding of the causal onset, diagnosis, progression, and treatment of the disease is limited and beset with...
Field Notes
A few days after the world celebrated Rare Disease Day, an international effort to raise awareness of rare diseases, UK-based Congenica, a company that offers clinical interpretation of genome sequence...
Field Notes
Early this year, backed by a 3-year, $1.5-million grant from the Sohn Conference Foundation, Columbia University Medical Center announced plans to provide genome sequencing to...
SNPshot
If you’re a man living in the US today, you have a 1 in 7 chance of being diagnosed with prostate cancer before you die....
Cognoscienti
Cancer is a complex disease caused by a combination of genetic factors and environmental and life style influences. These manifest across a wide spectrum of...
Cognoscienti
A biobank is an organization that acquires and stores human tissue and genetic data for future research use. Biobanks provide an opportunity for more efficient...
Cognoscienti
With more and more Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) and Consumer-Directed (CD) ‘Omics products hitting the US market, leading providers, physician groups and healthcare systems in the field...
Cognoscienti
A cancer diagnosis is a life-changing event. For advanced cancer in particular, standard of care treatments have limited impact on long term patient survival. Precision Medicine...
Cognoscienti
Over 2000 years ago, Hippocrates and the ancient Greeks believed that humors (bodily fluids) determined an individual’s behavior and disposition (On the Nature of...
Field Notes
Technologies that can detect cancer in circulating blood have proliferated over the past few years, but proof of their prowess in the clinic has been...
Field Notes
Since the first drug requiring a companion diagnostic test was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1998, the global market for companion...
Field Notes
In April, the precision medicine field got what researchers hope is a shot of adrenaline with the announcement by AstraZeneca that it will sequence the genomes...
20/20
Glimcher has a trail of impressive accolades that span her career as a prominent immunologist and leader. As dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, she led the recruitment...
SNPshot
Cancer research is overflowing with examples of fresh approaches accelerating meaningful, patient-centered results, but it should not be the isolated example. Many other areas of research...
Field Notes
The Inaugural Precision Medicine Leaders Summit (PMLS) was held in San Diego, California, on August 10-12th 2016 (www.precisionmedicineleaderssummit.com.) Currently there is a frenzied cacophony...
Field Notes
At the recent Precision Medicine Leaders Summit, the current developments being made in Cancer Immunotherapy were discussed on one of the many roundtables organised...
Cognoscienti
Precision Medicine is a complex, multifaceted “novel” approach to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, predicated on the analysis of individual patient data....
Cognoscienti
Circa the 5th century BC, Hippocrates established the basis for modern medicine, stating “It’s far more important to know what person the disease has...
20/20
As CEO of one of the world’s largest and most influential philanthropies, Susan Desmond- Hellmann, MD, MPH, directs an impressive portfolio: The Bill &...
Precision Tools
Stem cell research has been around since the 1860’s . Fast forward a hundred years to the 1960’s with the advent of the bone...
SNPshot
Currently, genomics studies contribute the vast majority of precision medicine- based data. As of August 2016, over 2,500 genome wide association studies (GWAS) have...
Field Notes
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is enormously widespread, affecting some 6% of US the population and killing 370,000 people annually and portending a heart attack,...
Cognoscienti
Studying the genetic makeup of a population is a powerful tool for healthcare systems. For rare Mendelian diseases it offers the opportunity to identify...
Field Notes
In early October, with a bandage on her arm after donating a pint of type O negative blood, Erin Elliott earned her “gallon pin”...
Cognoscienti
I walked into my office a few minutes late and found Jacob with his cheek down on the table, his mother and aunt flanking...
Field Notes
While researching our new books on women’s and men’s cancers, we made a rather startling discovery: what everyone refers to as ovarian cancer doesn’t...
The Hub
Among the breath-taking backdrop of the Canadian Coast Mountains, an ecosystem is emerging in the province of British Columbia. But rather than one borne...
SNPshot
Today, more than one in five pregnant women in the US gets her blood drawn when she’s about ten weeks pregnant, not to gauge...
Cognoscienti
Unless a coherent and believable evidence base is established it is doubtful that the promise of precision medicine utilizing next generation sequencing (NGS) will...
Precision Tools
Historically, the prognosis for metastatic melanoma has been poor. Patients with metastatic disease have a median survival of 6-9 months and less than 10%...
Field Notes
Prospects for using viruses to fight cancer got a huge boost in late 2015 when the US Food and Drug Administration granted its first-of-a-kind...
Cognoscienti
I was recently introduced to a beautiful lady, immaculately dressed and wearing a wig. She told me she had cancer and was is in...
Field Notes
In its 150-year history, the Mayo Clinic has stayed true to its patient-centered model of care. That same vision has guided the trajectory of...
Precision Medicine occupies a complex space – driven by science, dependent upon third parties for financial support, and bounded by vague and emerging laws...
Field Notes
In 1989, a young man affected with hemochromatosis, a genetic disorder of iron metabolism, told this story: “I have been successfully treated with low...
Cognoscienti
New laboratory and point-of-care tests are emerging to help physicians refine dosing of expensive and powerful biologics drugs, with the aim of bringing relief...
20/20
Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, began her pioneering studies of the cap-like ends of chromosomes, called telomeres, some four decades ago. Then a molecular mystery, telomeres...
Cognoscienti
For eight years, a group of 200 healthcare experts from six different stakeholder groups set aside their competitive agendas to search for an answer...
Cognoscienti
Mayo Clinic is an integrated multi-specialty group medical practice. The individual components operate under the auspices of Mayo Foundation, the not-for-profit parent organization. The...
Cognoscienti
As we approach the 20th anniversary, in 2018, of the approval of Herceptin, the field of precision oncology has never been more exciting and...
Cognoscienti
As a practicing clinician and an educator, I consistently arrive at crossroads when I need to make therapeutic choices. This often is done in...
Field Notes
The first challenge of any population-scale research study is building a cohort of engaged participants. But once that major feat is accomplished, there’s a...
Dr. Stephen Kingsmore, MD, DSc, is the President and CEO of the Rady Pediatric Genomics and Systems Medicine Institute. Shawn Baker CSO of AllSeq...
Precision Tools
Today, the genomic profile of a patient’s tumor may be as important, if not more so, than the tissue of origin. Patients whose tumors...
The focus of this year’s World Health Organisation (WHO) world health day on April 7th was major depression. The prominence given to depression reflected...
The Journal of Precision Medicine was founded in order to bridge the gap between the evolving technology in healthcare and the clinical needs of...
Field Notes
If new drug approvals are any indication, personalized medicine is progressing steadily despite ongoing challenges in regulation, reimbursement and clinical adoption. The Personalized Medicine...
In just a few months, the PM Connective expects to complete a new model for melanoma that will offer clinical and financial benefits in...
Field Notes
A patient has nothing without an accurate and timely diagnosis. Diagnostics are the glue that holds the healthcare system together. An inaccurate, missed or...
Field Notes
Stephen Ubl is president and chief executive officer of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which represents America’s leading biopharmaceutical research companies. Mr....
Field Notes
The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) is living proof that translational genomic medicine is not the unique domain of academic hospitals. Founded in 1929 as a...
Field Notes
It has been nearly 20 years since what most consider to be the advent of Precision Medicine, when two targeted therapies (Herceptin and Gleevec)...
Field Notes
It all started with a few lines in the California governor’s 2014 State of the State address: “Just as California has led the way...
Field Notes
Norma Nowak got hooked on the excitement and the promise of the Human Genome Project more than three decades ago and never looked back....
Cognoscienti
I was encouraged on reading the first issue of this journal, and now subsequent issues, that it would not be yet another forum for...
Cognoscienti
Enthusiasm, publicity, promise … personalized/precision medicine has captured many people’s imaginations with its potential for transforming healthcare. But is every academic and community health...
Cognoscienti
Change and uncertainty accompany any political transition, and as the new administration was taking shape back in the early part of the year, FDA-regulated...
Cognoscienti
As a cornerstone of the Merck approach to the development of companion diagnostics (CDx), we have developed a CDx guide that is applied across...
Cognoscienti
Of the many business, operational, legal, regulatory and clinical obstacles standing in the way of widespread delivery of personalized medicine, the single greatest challenge...
20/20
Eric Topol, MD, is not your average gadget guy. As a renowned cardiologist, he has made hand-held medical devices and mobile technology an essential...
Precision Tools
Stress is a type of reaction to a stimulus that disturbs our physical and mental equilibrium. Chronic stress is an escalating health problem that...
Precision Tools
Genomes encode the instructions for life forms. The ability to change this code in living cells can enable manipulation of organismal function and development....
Field Notes
Historically, diagnostic testing in healthcare has been bucketed as a commodity- cheap, frequent, and easy. This concept was born from run-of-the-mill testing: metabolic panels,...
Precision Tools
Precision medicine is positioned to revolutionize the healthcare landscape, and the utilization of advanced clinical development technologies is key to supporting precision medicine trials....
Precision Tools
Electronic health records are “digital” and their use is widespread today. But, relative to the care patients received ten years ago, has healthcare for...
Field Notes
He entered the stage with a shirt reading “Sequence Me”. The other panelists were dressed in business attire, as was the moderator. This was...
Field Notes
A fundamental shift in medical education is needed in order for doctors and patients to benefit most from advances in precision medicine and information...
Field Notes
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning – What’s the Difference? Genomics has been the catalyst in the information revolution that is sweeping across healthcare and...
Precision Tools
Stress is a type of reaction to a stimulus that disturbs our physical and mental equilibrium. Chronic stress is an escalating health problem that...
Precision Tools
Networks are pervasive in biomedicine, especially in the realm of experimental studies and computational applications. Their relevance reflects the ability to model systemic complexity....
Field Notes
The title of this column poses a critical question that goes to the heart of Precision Medicine’s prospects to effectively meet its promise to...
Field Notes
In reviewing the agenda for this year’s conference, one would imagine another event organized to discuss what we have been talking about for few...
Field Notes
How DarwinHealth’s protein-hunting algorithms are helping the company advance cancer therapy and fill the gaps left by more traditional, gene-based methods
Precision Tools
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) holds the promise of tailoring diagnosis and treatment to individuals based on their genetic makeup. As the price of sequencing drops,...
Precision Tools
Life science sponsors are incorporating patient genetic and genomic information in clinical development programs to find the most accurate and effective treatments for patient...
Precision Tools
A growing body of evidence has shown that the microbiome influences both the development of disease and patient response to therapy. In the field...
Cognoscienti
2017 was an important year for Diagnostics’ impact on healthcare – marked by multiple positive milestones. While many of these milestones were overdue, we...
Cognoscienti
Medicine is full of examples of innovative and intuitively appealing ideas, some of which have really improved patients’ lives and some that just turned...
Cognoscienti
Real-World Evidence (RWE) holds out the promise of reducing time and costs of product approvals, identifying new uses for existing products, increasing our ability...
Cognoscienti
How a global collaborative effort and its Accelerated Roadmap to Prevention leverage BRCA gene mutations as the scientific gateway to cancer prevention
Cognoscienti
The concept of companion diagnostics for cancer was introduced in 1998 with approval of trastuzumab (Herceptin®) together with the respective HER2 test for selecting...
Cognoscienti
In June, FierceBiotech reported that FDA would continue to “rethink targeted therapy regulation” to “speed development” in 2017. The agency certainly made good on...
Field Notes
There is a pressing need to better represent ethnic diversity with genomic resources — and in particular to do so in a way that...
Field Notes
The trouble with the future is that it usually arrives before we are ready for it,”said 92-year old Arnold H. Glasow in 1995
Field Notes
I was once oblivious to the significance of the olive. As a child it was a color – a pastel shade of green –...
Field Notes
Precision Medicine is rapidly taking a larger and larger share of new therapeutic product approvals as industry and the FDA are gaining a more...
Field Notes
In a sense, when we have been talking about the goal of Precision Medicine, we have been discussing the value of diagnostics, with little...
