Increased attention is being paid to the predictive power of family health history, in terms of its value relative to cost, the quality of data standards being developed, and a sense that this information is as valuable to people as it is to doctors. The speed at which we've been able to translate genomic discovery into pragmatic interventions is being hotly debated due to the 10th anniversary of the completion of the draft human genome. Both the mainstream press (the New York Times, Wired, the Economist, and Good Morning America) and scientific journals (New England Journal of Medicine pieces by Collins and Varmus) have discussed the current dearth of new treatments based on genomic discoveries and the limited use of genetic factors in predicting disease risk. However, some things are clear to us at 5AM:
5AM's mission is to make the web the place where life science professionals work and succeed (and exposing failed ideas as fast as possible counts!). We have tackled issues such as those suggested by the lack of quality of biospecimens or associated clinical data (see Wired's Libraries of the Flesh), bringing together geographically disparate, multi-disciplinary teams and companies around a common problem (supporting the Ivy Genomic Based Medicine effort from a workflow as well as computational perspective), and making the data academics are creating readily sharable. Of all the challenges in the life sciences, there is not one root cause and no single company, agency, or institution that will be able to "solve it."
What seems incredibly clear to us, and we don't think we're alone, is that tackling small pieces of the problem can be more valuable, and deliver results more quickly, than waiting for the revolution to take over. Incremental change that brings education, information, and technology into the hands of clinicians and researchers and the people and patients they serve, is worthwhile. Improving human health will be a long journey, but we look forward to joining with our colleagues and partners in making incremental and effective steps forward. Making a more informed choice today than yesterday is the value we seek to deliver.
- we are discovering more about how genes relate to disease
- we are able to produce volumes of data dramatically faster and cheaper than even wildly imagined 10 years ago
- we are not equipped to understand, interpret and apply knowledge from the data explosion as effectively as we would like.
5AM's mission is to make the web the place where life science professionals work and succeed (and exposing failed ideas as fast as possible counts!). We have tackled issues such as those suggested by the lack of quality of biospecimens or associated clinical data (see Wired's Libraries of the Flesh), bringing together geographically disparate, multi-disciplinary teams and companies around a common problem (supporting the Ivy Genomic Based Medicine effort from a workflow as well as computational perspective), and making the data academics are creating readily sharable. Of all the challenges in the life sciences, there is not one root cause and no single company, agency, or institution that will be able to "solve it."
What seems incredibly clear to us, and we don't think we're alone, is that tackling small pieces of the problem can be more valuable, and deliver results more quickly, than waiting for the revolution to take over. Incremental change that brings education, information, and technology into the hands of clinicians and researchers and the people and patients they serve, is worthwhile. Improving human health will be a long journey, but we look forward to joining with our colleagues and partners in making incremental and effective steps forward. Making a more informed choice today than yesterday is the value we seek to deliver.
