Elsevier has just published an editorial of mine entitled, The Data Complexity Barrier and the Surprising Importance of Rare Diseases. The premise of the article is that the common diseases of humans are way too complex to understand. Money spent on President Obama's Precision Medicine initiative will be wasted if funds are primarily directed to the common diseases. As it happens, the rare diseases are genetically simple, compared with the common diseases. Money spent on rare disease research is money well spent. In most instances, breakthroughs in understanding the rare diseases have led to new treatments for the common diseases.
I urge you to read the full editorial. Unlike much of the newsfeed hype on the subject of Precision Medicine, my article is well-researched and includes 44 references to the supporting literature.
- Jules J. Berman, Ph.D., M.D.
key words: precision medicine, pharmacogenomics, pharmacogenetics, personalized medicine, genomics, bioinformatics, funding, President Obama's initiative, common diseases, rare diseases, complexity barrier
