Biological and biomedical research, like many established human activities, is based on conventions and practices that become standardized over time. Many of these conventions are decades old and do not account for the great advances in knowledge resulting from modern research. Some of the main practices of biomedical research are discussed herein, in an attempt to initiate a dialogue in the nutrition community about new concepts for personalized nutrition and health.
The Design of ExperimentsThe design of biomedical research experiments rests on standards developed almost 100 years ago. The methodology was codifi ed in RA Fisher's The Design of Experiments [12] a 1935 treatise that described the key elements of good research protocols. These benchmarks are a valued requisite for determining the quality of experimental results and Fisher's experimental design is now considered the gold standard for human Abstract: The progress in and success of biomedical research over the past century was built on the foundation outlined in R.A. Fisher's The Design of Experiments (1935), which described the theory and methodological approach to designing research studies. A key tenet of Fisher's treatise, widely adopted by the research community, is randomization, the process of assigning individuals to random groups or treatments. Comparing outcomes or responses between these groups yields "risk factors" called population attributable risks (PAR), which are statistical estimates of the percentage reduction in disease if the risk were avoided or in the case of genetic associations, if the gene variant were not present in the population . High throughput metabolomics, proteomic and genomic technologies provide 21 st century data that humans cannot be randomized into groups: individuals are genetically and biochemically distinct. Gene -environment interactions caused by unique dietary and lifestyle factors contribute to heterogeneity in physiologies observed in human studies. The risk factors determined for populations (i.e., PAR) cannot be applied to the individual. Developing individual risk or benefi t factors in light of the genetic diversity of human populations, the complexity of foods, culture and lifestyle, and the variety of metabolic processes that lead to health or disease are signifi cant challenges for personalizing dietary advice for healthy or medical treatments for individuals with chronic disease. Table I), when applied to the appropriate scientifi c question, produce reliable evidence for improving public and personal health. More humans survive childbirth, infancy, childhood, and through advanced age than any time in our species history [44].One of the key tenets of designing experiments is the requirement for randomization of subjects or other outbred animals to case and control groups. Randomization distributes unknown or unmeasurable characteristics between groups in an attempt to isolate and identify measurable variables that differ between or distinguish those groups. While this step was necessary in the ...