Innovative Approaches to Precision Medicine

Project Description Narrative:

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Recent progress in genomics and big data has led to precision medicine, a new approach for disease prevention and treatment that considers the variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person. Current efforts in precision medicine focus primarily on genome sequences, an approach that could be productive for diseases such as congenital diseases and cancer where a small number of genome sequence variations play a major role in the disease of a patient.

However, genome sequences alone are unlikely to be useful for common diseases such as heart disease, hypertension, and kidney disease due to several factors. Adding to that, environmental and lifestyle factors greatly influence these diseases. The role of environmental and lifestyle factors has been largely neglected in precision medicine.

Through this award, investigators aim to use innovative approaches to advance precision medicine's understanding of how to measure and account for the influence of environmental and lifestyle factors, and facilitate individualized care for patients with common diseases such as hypertension, kidney, and heart disease.