Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
The digital revolution has already transformed
communications, finance, retail and information tech-
nology by harnessing big datasets through computational
analyses and by creating powerful new business and social
networks. The digital revolution is contributing to indi-
vidualize healthcare in several important ways: (1) by
providing tools and strategies for managing and analyzing
large biological and environmental datasets; (2) by cata-
lyzing the invention of personal monitoring devices that
can digitalize biological and social information, thus
enabling an assessment of wellness and disease for the
individual (e.g., the 'quantified self'); and (3) by providing
models for the creation of consumer (patient)-driven and
consumer (patient)-participating social networks that focus
on optimizing wellness and/or dealing with disease
(
Figure 23.1
)
[8
capabilities and employing the domain expertise of
biology to direct the development of software, systems
biologists have developed powerful new suites of tools for
mining, integrating and modeling 'big data' sets of
heterogeneous biological data to generate predictive and
actionable models of health and disease for each patient
[10,16
19]
. 'Actionable' means that the data provide
information that is useful for improving the health of the
individual patient. Thus, systems biologists have transi-
tioned from the reductive studies of traditional biology
that focus on a few genes or proteins to the new holistic
and
e
comprehensive
analyses
of
systems
biology,
analyzing how all of
the components of biological
systems interact.
Unlike the reactive, limited-data population-based
hierarchical approach of contemporary evidence-based
healthcare
[20]
, P4 medicine is not confined to clinics and
hospitals. It will be practiced in the home, as informed
and networked consumers use new information, tools and
resources such as wellness and navigation coaches and
digital health information devices to better manage their
health. Below we provide a brief picture of systems
medicine and its role in the emergence of this proactive P4
medicine. We then will explore the multi-dimensionality of
P4 medicine, with its many implications for the individual
consumer (patient) and for society.
10,12]
.
The convergence of the digital revolution and systems
approaches to wellness and disease is beginning to lead
a proactive P4 medicine that is predictive, preventive,
personalized
e
15]
. s
'P4 medicine' is the clinical application of the tools and
strategies of systems medicine to quantify wellness and
demystify disease (
Figure 23.2
) for the wellbeing of the
individual. The digital revolution has given scientists the
ability to generate and analyze previously inconceivably
large quantities of digital data. Using these new
and
participatory
[1,13
e
FIGURE 23.1
A network depicting the interacting components of the healthcare system indicating the dominant role patients will have in
advancing P4 medicine through their consumer-driven social networks. Networks allow one to organize and model data and are important in dealing
with the signal to noise problem of large data sets.
