Personalized Medicine: the Future of Health Care

BACKGROUND: Most medical treatments have been designed for the “average patients”. As a result of this “one-size-fits-all-approach”, treatments can be very successful for some patients but not for others. The issue is shifting by the new innovation approach in diseases treatment and prevention, precision medicine, which takes into account individual differences in people\u27s genes, environments, and lifestyles. This review was aimed to describe a new approach of healthcare performance strategy based on individual genetic variants.CONTENT: Researchers have discovered hundreds of genes that harbor variations contributing to human illness, identified genetic variability in patients\u27 responses to different of treatments, and from there begun to target the genes as molecular causes of diseases. In addition, scientists are developing and using diagnostic tests based on genetics or other molecular mechanisms to better predict patients\u27 responses to targeted therapy.SUMMARY: Personalized medicine seeks to use advances in knowledge about genetic factors and biological mechanisms of disease coupled with unique considerations of an individual\u27s patient care needs to make health care more safe and effective. As a result of these contributions to improvement in the quality of care, personalized medicine represents a key strategy of healthcare reform

The Pharmacogenetics Research Network: From SNP Discovery to Clinical Drug Response

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109975/1/cpt6100087.pd

Forensic Pharmacogenetics

Current pharmacogenetics research in the clinical and medico-legal settings provides new options for disease treatment and prevention of ADR avoiding correlated death, and for screening interactions with the polymorphic P450 enzymes early on in drug development

Process analytical technology in food biotechnology

Biotechnology is an area where precision and reproducibility are vital. This is due to the fact that products are often in form of food, pharmaceutical or cosmetic products and therefore very close to the human being. To avoid human error during the production or the evaluation of the quality of a product and to increase the optimal utilization of raw materials, a very high amount of automation is desired. Tools in the food and chemical industry that aim to reach this degree of higher automation are summarized in an initiative called Process Analytical Technology (PAT). Within the scope of the PAT, is to provide new measurement technologies for the purpose of closed loop control in biotechnological processes. These processes are the most demanding processes in regards of control issues due to their very often biological rate-determining component. Most important for an automation attempt is deep process knowledge, which can only be achieved via appropriate measurements. These measurements can either be carried out directly, measuring a crucial physical value, or if not accessible either due to the lack of technology or a complicated sample state, via a soft-sensor.Even after several years the ideal aim of the PAT initiative is not fully implemented in the industry and in many production processes. On the one hand a lot effort still needs to be put into the development of more general algorithms which are more easy to implement and especially more reliable. On the other hand, not all the available advances in this field are employed yet. The potential users seem to stick to approved methods and show certain reservations towards new technologies.Die Biotechnologie ist ein Wissenschaftsbereich, in dem hohe Genauigkeit und Wiederholbarkeit eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Dies ist der Tatsache geschuldet, dass die hergestellten Produkte sehr oft den Bereichen Nahrungsmitteln, Pharmazeutika oder Kosmetik angehöhren und daher besonders den Menschen beeinflussen. Um den menschlichen Fehler bei der Produktion zu vermeiden, die Qualität eines Produktes zu sichern und die optimale Verwertung der Rohmaterialen zu gewährleisten, wird ein besonders hohes Maß an Automation angestrebt. Die Werkzeuge, die in der Nahrungsmittel- und chemischen Industrie hierfür zum Einsatz kommen, werden in der Process Analytical Technology (PAT) Initiative zusammengefasst. Ziel der PAT ist die Entwicklung zuverlässiger neuer Methoden, um Prozesse zu beschreiben und eine automatische Regelungsstrategie zu realisieren. Biotechnologische Prozesse gehören hierbei zu den aufwändigsten Regelungsaufgaben, da in den meisten Fällen eine biologische Komponente der entscheidende Faktor ist. Entscheidend für eine erfolgreiche Regelungsstrategie ist ein hohes Maß an Prozessverständnis. Dieses kann entweder durch eine direkte Messung der entscheidenden physikalischen, chemischen oder biologischen Größen gewonnen werden oder durch einen SoftSensor. Zusammengefasst zeigt sich, dass das finale Ziel der PAT Initiative auch nach einigen Jahren des Propagierens weder komplett in der Industrie noch bei vielen Produktionsprozessen angekommen ist. Auf der einen Seite liegt dies mit Sicherheit an der Tatsache, dass noch viel Arbeit in die Generalisierung von Algorithmen gesteckt werden muss. Diese müsse einfacher zu implementieren und vor allem noch zuverlässiger in der Funktionsweise sein. Auf der anderen Seite wurden jedoch auch Algorithmen, Regelungsstrategien und eigne Ansätze für einen neuartigen Sensor sowie einen Soft-Sensors vorgestellt, die großes Potential zeigen. Nicht zuletzt müssen die möglichen Anwender neue Strategien einsetzen und Vorbehalte gegenüber unbekannten Technologien ablegen

The Intestinal Microbiota May Be a Potential Theranostic Tool for Personalized Medicine

he human intestine is colonized by a huge number of microorganisms from the moment of birth. This set of microorganisms found throughout the human body, is called the microbiota; the microbiome indicates the totality of genes that the microbiota can express, i.e., its genetic heritage. Thus, microbiota participates in and influences the proper functioning of the organism. The microbiota is unique for each person; it differs in the types of microorganisms it contains, the number of each microorganism, and the ratio between them, but mainly it changes over time and under the influence of many factors. Therefore, the correct functioning of the human body depends not only on the expression of its genes but also on the expression of the genes of the microorganisms it coexists with. This fact makes clear the enormous interest of community science in studying the relationship of the human microbiota with human health and the incidence of disease. The microbiota is like a unique personalized “mold” for each person; it differs quantitatively and qualitatively for the microorganisms it contains together with the relationship between them, and it changes over time and under the influence of many factors. We are attempting to modulate the microbial components in the human intestinal microbiota over time to provide positive feedback on the health of the host, from intestinal diseases to cancer. These interventions to modulate the intestinal microbiota as well as to identify the relative microbiome (genetic analysis) can range from dietary (with adjuvant prebiotics or probiotics) to fecal transplantation. This article researches the recent advances in these strategies by exploring their advantages and limitations. Furthermore, we aim to understand the relationship between intestinal dysbiosis and pathologies, through the research of resident microbiota, that would allow the personalization of the therapeutic antibiotic strategy

Role of angiogenic factors and circulating monocytes in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia and intrauterine fetal growth restriction

A collection of studies into the pathogenesis of preeclampsia (PE) and intrauterine fetal growth restriction (IUGR) are presented, focusing on factors involved in the angiogenesis as well as maternal factors such as circulating monocytes and lipid status. Placental expression of PlGF and KDR were significantly reduced in IUGR Adescription of digital image analysis techniques in the assessment of angiogenic factor expression in the placenta is presented. The study on circulating angiogenic factors showed elevated sFlt-1 and sEndoglin and low PlGF in preeclampsia and IUGR. Pro and anti-angiogenic factors and their ratios were assessed as biomarkers for pathological pregnancies. Maternal and fetal monocyte phenotype and polarization were examined inPE and IUGR. Ahigher percentage of intermediate and non-classical monocytes were found in PE and IUGR. Evaluation of inflammatory and healing monocyte phenotypes showed a shift towards healing phenotype in IUGR. The maternal and fetal triglyceride levels were higher in preeclampsia. This study documented the first description of elevated Apo lipoprotein B levels in cord blood at delivery in PE and IUGR. This research contributes to the literature on pathogenesis of preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction, demonstrating similarities and differences between the conditions which has lead us closer towards understanding their pathogenesis

Biological evolution through mutation, selection, and drift: An introductory review

Motivated by present activities in (statistical) physics directed towards biological evolution, we review the interplay of three evolutionary forces: mutation, selection, and genetic drift. The review addresses itself to physicists and intends to bridge the gap between the biological and the physical literature. We first clarify the terminology and recapitulate the basic models of population genetics, which describe the evolution of the composition of a population under the joint action of the various evolutionary forces. Building on these foundations, we specify the ingredients explicitly, namely, the various mutation models and fitness landscapes. We then review recent developments concerning models of mutational degradation. These predict upper limits for the mutation rate above which mutation can no longer be controlled by selection, the most important phenomena being error thresholds, Muller's ratchet, and mutational meltdowns. Error thresholds are deterministic phenomena, whereas Muller's ratchet requires the stochastic component brought about by finite population size. Mutational meltdowns additionally rely on an explicit model of population dynamics, and describe the extinction of populations. Special emphasis is put on the mutual relationship between these phenomena. Finally, a few connections with the process of molecular evolution are established.Comment: 62 pages, 6 figures, many reference

Precision Medicine

This colligated Special Issue of Pharmaceutics on Precision Medicine: Applied Concepts of Pharmacogenomics in Patients with Various Diseases and Polypharmacy offers to the reader a series of articles that describe the concept of Precision Medicine, discuss its implementation process and limitations, demonstrate its value by illustrating some clinical cases, and open the door to new and more sophisticated techniques and applications

Review of Forecasting Univariate Time-series Data with Application to Water-Energy Nexus Studies & Proposal of Parallel Hybrid SARIMA-ANN Model

The necessary materials for most human activities are water and energy. Integrated analysis to accurately forecast water and energy consumption enables the implementation of efficient short and long-term resource management planning as well as expanding policy and research possibilities for the supportive infrastructure. However, the integral relationship between water and energy (water-energy nexus) poses a difficult problem for modeling. The accessibility and physical overlay of data sets related to water-energy nexus is another main issue for a reliable water-energy consumption forecast. The framework of urban metabolism (UM) uses several types of data to build a global view and highlight issues of inefficiency within the network. Failure to view the whole system contributes to the inability to comprehend the complexity and interconnectivity of the issues within the system. This complexity is found in most systems, especially with systems that must be able to support and react to vacillating human interaction and behavior. One approach to address the limitations of data accessibility and model inflexibility is through the application of univariate time-series with heterogeneous hybrid modeling addresses. Time-series forecasting uses past observations of the same variable(s) to analyze and separate the pattern from white noise to define underlying relationships to predict future behavior. There are various linear and non-linear models utilized to forecast time-series data sets; however, ground truth data sets with extreme seasonal variation are neither pure linear nor pure non-linear. This truth has propelled model building into hybrid model frameworks to combine linear and non-linear methodologies to reduce the fallacies of both model frameworks with the other\u27s strengths. This problem report works to illustrate the limitations of complex WEN studies, build a timeline of hybrid modeling analysis using univariate time-series data, and develop a parallel hybrid SARIMA-ANN model framework to increase univariate time-series analysis capabilities in order to address previously discussed WEN study limitations. The parallel Hybrid SARIMA – ANN model performs better in comparison to SARIMA, ANN, and Series hybrid SARIMA-ANN; and shows promise for research expansion with structure flexibility to expand with additional variables