#112 / Precision Medicine

This Spring, a major conference on Precision Medicine will take place at the University of California at Santa Cruz. If you are unclear on what "Precision Medicine" is all about (I certainly was), just click the link, to see what the National Institutes of Health have to say about it. Or, to cut to the chase, you can read this very short summary of the longer NIH statement:

Precision medicine is an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person. While some advances in precision medicine have been made, the practice is not currently in use for most diseases. 

We, as biologically determined creatures, are more and more delving into the intricate mechanisms that have encoded and implement the "laws" or "rules" that govern our biological existence. We are starting to tinker! The more we learn, the more we will do that, manipulating the genetic codes that determine so much about us as living beings, so we can write our own rules. 

Lots of positive benefits may be on the horizon. 

But dangers, too. 

Heads up!

Image Credit:

https://www.dtmi.duke.edu/news/precision-medicine-duke