In this engaging overview of the Precision Medicine program at Penn Medicine, program directors and faculty reflect upon the meaning, value and potential of precision medicine, which integrates molecular genetics, pathology informatics and genomic pathology to individualize treatment for patients with cancer and other diseases with a genetic component.
DAVID B.ROTH, MD,PhD: Here at Penn, we are at the beginning of a real revolution in how we'll be delivering health care. And its most basic, precision medicine is really about treating the right patient at the right time with the right treatment. JASON MOORE, PhD: Each one of us has a unique genetic profile, has a unique set of biological and physiologic measurements that determines our trajectory through time toward a particular disease end point. As a patient here, you will have access to the latest advances in precision medicine enabled by cutting edge computational infrastructure and the latest research in biomedical informatics. DAVID B.ROTH, MD,PhD: You come in and get a blood test to get a work up and we get you right to the effective therapy. I think that's really the heart of matter. We don't waste your time. We don't beat up your body. We don't waste resources giving you treatments that our diagnostic tests can predict are not going to be effective. COREY J. LANGER, MD:We can often find abnormalities that simply were undetected outside. When we do this, we really open up the doors to treatment that might otherwise not have been available. KATHERINE L NATHANSON, MD: It's not only the patient and optimizing care for the patient, but it's optimized to care for the family, so that we're able to do genetic testing for other family members and figure out who's at risk of disease. MITCHELL D. SCHNALL, MD, PhD: One of the things that's happening in precision medicine is the diagnostic tools are so powerful that the diagnostic tools sometimes are ahead of what the available therapies are. But at Penn, we actually have the ability to act on the biology that we understand to develop the therapies of the future that are going to be active against those targets. DAVID B.ROTH, MD,PhD: The excitement of the discoveries coming from this lab and all the labs around us is palpable. I think that's something you don't get at every medical center. There's really a benefit to doing this work in an academic medical center that has people who are committed, passionate, and unbelievably bright working on various problems that will impact medicine.
