Dr. Leroy Hood, president of the Institute for Systems Biology, said personalized medicine's first "killer apps" - therapies that will be nearly 100 percent effective based on patient genes and other individual factors - will drive the transformation of health care from trial-and-error effectiveness.
"The debate today really is centered on the past and present of medicine, rather than the future," said Hood, speaking at the Transforming Health Care Through Personalized Medicine conference at The Ohio State University Medical Center. "Health care right now is so marginal you can really argue whether it's worth it."
Hood says he not only envisions faster and cheaper bulk patient data analysis supporting personalized medicine solutions within the next 10 years, but also home-based testing enabling individuals to check therapeutic response as often as they wish. "If you take Lipitor, why not test your genetic assays three or four times a week?" he said.
Recent advances in understanding of the "blood fingerprint" providing a radically new means to identify disease and its interrelation with organ networks, and the superior predictive health understanding made possible by genetic testing within families vs. the general population, are among the current building blocks supporting next-stage personalized medicine advances, Hood said.
The Ohio State University Medical Center plans to collaborate with the Institute for Systems Biology to form the P4 Medical Institute, which will accelerate movement toward predictive, personalized, preventive and participatory health care through public-private partnership, said Dr. Clay Marsh, executive director of the Center for Personalized Health Care at Ohio State Medical Center.
"Academic medical centers and business need to be the leaders in transforming health care for tomorrow," said Marsh. "The P4 Medical Institute is creating partnerships across the health care sector to speed implementation and access to a superior new care model."
Complete information about the conference, keynote speakers and personalized medicine is available at the Medical Center's Personalized Health Care blog, www.PHCConference.wordpress.com.