Individual differences in health and disease are still not completely understood by modern medical science.

 

Our overall life spans have lengthened. But we do not definitively know what makes a difference among the many variables contributing to health or disease.

 

The National Institute of Health has launched the “Precision Medicine Initiative.” This is an ongoing five-year initiative to enroll one million or more people in a study that will match their lifestyle habits, health history, diet, activities, and unique characteristics—including their genome sequence, microbiome composition, and any illness they might suffer—with the therapies which would potentially be most effective.

 

Currently, medical science still does not know what causes many of the dread diseases such as cancer or degenerative neurological conditions. For instance, is cancer just one disease? Is cancer in one organ of the body the same as found in another location or organ? Why do some folks do so well, and others respond poorly? These are just a sample of the many questions to be asked and hopefully answered.

 

In our computer age, information can be quickly sliced, diced, and analyzed searching for underlying associations. Linking data with environmental factors or genetic traits can develop into personalized medicine, which is potentially much more effective than the current “one size fits all” therapeutic programs. Having detailed history, environmental facts, and clinical specimens for more than one million people could have great potential benefits for researchers.

 

This information will be “blinded” to protect privacy and will give many research groups access to much larger pools of information than they have ever had before. Some of the potential benefits of the Precision Medicine Initiative include: understanding the risk of disease; identifying the causes for individual variations of responses to various medications; discovering the biological markers; and developing new disease classifications and relationships.

 

Engaging participants as partners in research is important for success in the program. Having many different ethnic groups, socio-economic diversity, and representatives from across America brings the promise of precision medicine to everyone.

 

Major institutions across the nation are already engaged in collecting specimens and data. Mayo Clinic has an active biobank of specimens which will become the world’s largest research-cohort biobank for precision medicine. An anticipated 35 million bio-specimens and associated data will be made available to researchers.