Leroy Hood thinks the $2.3 trillion US health care system is headed for life support, but he has a plan for curing its inefficiency, and ineffectiveness. The 69-year-old biotechnologist bases his plan on the four Ps—medicine that is predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory. The goal is to shift medicine from treating illness to managing health, saving money and lives along the way. Hood's Institute for Systems Biology is developing the diagnostics and technology to make it happen. Here's the doctor's Rx.
The US medical system should be ...
Predictive
The vision
Using genome sequencing and blood tests, a doctor will be able to determine a patient's probability of developing certain diseases. The price of these tests is dropping and will soon be less than $1,000 — the same as a CT scan today.
The challenge
Physicians will have to be trained to use the technology ethically. Patients will have to make sense of new kinds of choices.
Preventive
The vision
Based on an individualized risk profile, you could start therapies in advance to cut the likelihood of illness. Drugs could be designed to blunt the desire to overeat, drink, or smoke. Average lifespan could be extended by 10 to 30 years.
The challenge
What qualifies as a disease? Will we have fewer football players if we quiet the genes that drive aggression?
Personalized
The vision
With billions of data points for every patient, drug therapies can be created to suit each genome. This would eliminate the trial-and-error approach doctors use today.
The challenge
Having your genome on Google could be a huge privacy risk. With so much information around, data security will become an important field in the health care industry.
Participatory
The vision
People will maintain their own health, not just by treating existing illnesses but by learning about their own predispositions.
The challenge
How to explain biomarkers to someone with little grasp of science? Hood proposes games that teach health concepts, and his Institute for Systems Biology is working with school districts to develop top-notch science curricula.
Leroy Hood is President of the Institute for Systems Biology.
Wired.com
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