In the words of the National Institute of Health, precision medicine is an approach to disease treatment and prevention that accounts for individual variability in genes, environment and lifestyle. In simpler terms, precision medicine means using a tailored treatment approach for each person based on their actual disease, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. The aim of President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) is to make this type of healthcare the norm rather than the exception. There’s no doubt this is the future of medicine. Since it was announced in January, PMI has received a ton of press, however many patients and advocates still have questions about how it actually works.
Last week we took part in a Precision Medicine Initiative Tweet chat hosted by the National Institute of Health (@NIH) to help field some of these questions. The discussion was moderated by Kathy Hudson (@KathyHudsonNIH), NIH Deputy Director for Science, Outreach and Policy, and DJ Patil (@dj44), U.S. Chief Data Scientist at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Here are some of the highlights:
What is precision medicine and why does it matter?
T1 Precision medicine often refers to the treatment of cancer based on the genetic abnormalities of a person’s tumor. #PMINetwork
— National Cancer Inst (@theNCI) June 30, 2015
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2/ @ksurkan One of the parts of PMI is to make sure that the patient/participant is the center of the project. #PMINetwork. This means…
— DJ Patil (@DJ44) June 30, 2015
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T1 The principles of precision medicine can also be applied to cancer screening and cancer prevention. #PMINetwork — National Cancer Inst (@theNCI) June 30, 2015
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T1: In post-genome era, 1-size-fits all treatment approach to treatment, diagnosis, prevention no longer relevant. #PMINetwork
— Kathy Giusti (@KathyGiusti) June 30, 2015
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T1 The PM program at Moffitt has treated over 300 patients so far this year, with an additional 150+ in clinical research #PMINetwork — MoffittCancerCenter (@MoffittNews) June 30, 2015
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#Precisionmedicine identifies changes & patterns in #lungcancers to change treatment outcomes #pminetwork
— LUNGevity Foundation (@LUNGevity) June 30, 2015
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T1: (2/2) Friends & @NCI w/ 5 @phrma co’s created Lung-MAP trial which uses precision medicine to guide lung cancer treatment #PMINetwork — Cancer Research (@CancerResrch) June 30, 2015
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T1: Breast cancer patient, part of #PrecisionMedicine research study @Mayo#PMINetwork
— Holly Boehle (@HollyBoehle) June 30, 2015
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#BRCA2 #breastcancer survivor here, who benefitted from individualized treatment protocol. Looking forward to #PMINetwork chat.
— Nicki B. Durlester (@NickiDurlester) June 30, 2015
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T2 #NHLBI’s Whole-Genome Sequencing Project includes ~20,000 individuals from diverse groups. http://t.co/S5YTGJx1oD #PMINetwork
— NIH NHLBI (@nih_nhlbi) June 30, 2015
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A2: Lung-MAP is a multi-drug, multi-sub-study, biomarker-driven squamous cell lung cancer clinical trial http://t.co/yhNqucC9so #pminetwork
— LUNGevity Foundation (@LUNGevity) June 30, 2015
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@DJ44 @ksurkan Data access critical, but accurate analysis, interpretation & education of patients, families and carers crucial #PMINetwork
— St. Jude Research (@StJudeResearch) June 30, 2015
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T3: http://t.co/1gmG2xYpLz Widespread Data Sharing Necessary to Accelerate Advances in Precision Medicine @FoxChaseCancer #PMINetwork #NIH
— Wafik El-Deiry MDPhD (@weldeiry) June 30, 2015
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T5: #Healthcare needs to utilize #digitaltechnology to truly advance #PMINetwork #datasharing #genetictesting #PMINetwork @MyGeneCounsel
— MyGeneCounsel (@MyGeneCounsel) June 30, 2015
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T5: Long-term goal of PMI is launch national cohort study of 1M or more Americans to propel our understanding of health&disease #PMINetwork
— NIH (@NIH) June 30, 2015
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What work still needs to be done?
T7: Need for information in language #patients can understand and use #geneticcounseling #genetictesting @NIH #PMINetwork @MyGeneCounsel
— MyGeneCounsel (@MyGeneCounsel) June 30, 2015
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T6: America’s rich diversity..How do u reach all sections of society? Create diverse #PMINetwork National Ambassadors 4 far reaching effects
— Lisa M Guzzardi, RN (@LguzzardiM) June 30, 2015
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#PMINetwork #Advocates and #nonprofits would be more effective if they supported each other. Everyone is doing great stuff! #Lynchsyndrome
— Georgia Hurst (@ShewithLynch) June 30, 2015
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More reading
T1: This blog post from @NIHDirector looks at #precisionmedicine efforts in #cysticfibrosis http://t.co/1vDSxS5Y08 #PMINetwork
— NIH (@NIH) June 30, 2015
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Taking #patients from passengers to co-pilots expands the impact of research http://t.co/S6Kb57w5la #PMINetwork #hcsm
— FasterCures (@fastercures) June 30, 2015
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On new data transparency for scientific community. Openness is #culturechange #PMINetwork http://t.co/FKxDbACYQe https://t.co/kG91kmYei4
— Kelly Edwards (@engagedethics) June 30, 2015
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Read the full transcript here and follow the growing conversation using #PMINetwork on Twitter. Have a question or comment you didn’t get to contribute? Please post in the comments below.