From integrative disease modeling to predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory (P4) medicine

Abstract

With the significant advancement of high-throughput technologies and diagnostic techniques throughout the past decades, molecular underpinnings of many disorders have been identified. However, translation of patient-specific molecular mechanisms into tailored clinical applications remains a challenging task, which requires integration of multi-dimensional molecular and clinical data into patient-centric models. This task becomes even more challenging when dealing with complex diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders. Integrative disease modeling is an emerging knowledge-based paradigm in translational research that exploits the power of computational methods to collect, store, integrate, model and interpret accumulated disease information across different biological scales from molecules to phenotypes. We argue that integrative disease modeling will be an indispensable part of any P4 medicine research and development in the near future and that it supports the shift from descriptive to causal mechanistic diagnosis and treatment of complex diseases. For each ‘P’ in predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory (P4) medicine, we demonstrate how integrative disease modeling can contribute to addressing the real-world issues in development of new predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory measures. With the increasing recognition that application of integrative systems modeling is the key to all activities in P4 medicine, we envision that translational bioinformatics in general and integrative modeling in particular will continue to open up new avenues of scientific research for current challenges in P4 medicine.

Medicine in the early twenty-first century: paradigm and anticipation - EPMA position paper 2016

“…In order to effectively promote the translational medicine as the “catalyser” for practical implementation of the accumulated scientific achievements, EPMA creates a robust platform for an effective dialogue between PPPM relevant professional groups on the one side, and industry and policy-makers on the other side—for more information, see the main documents of the association [6, 35]. The main goal is to translate knowledge from studies at the bench side to care at the bedside by following mechanism: from discovery to health application, to evidence-based guidelines, to advanced health care services and finally to health impacts for the patient [60, 61]. …”

Challenges of Integrative Disease Modeling in Alzheimer's Disease

“…Studies have successfully identified multiple biomarkers for neurodegeneration and AD (Blennow and Zetterberg, 2018). However, effectively translating extensive biomarker screenings into clinical application remains a challenging task, because individual biomarkers can only provide a highly incomplete view on such a multifactorial disease (Younesi and Hofmann-Apitius, 2013). For instance, while multiple associations between genetic variants and AD have been established (Jansen et al, 2019;Kunkle et al, 2019), none of these associations fully describe disease pathogenesis.…”

“…In recent years, a new translational research paradigm called "integrative disease modeling" has emerged, to address this challenge (Younesi and Hofmann-Apitius, 2013). It aims at modeling heterogeneous measurements across different biological scales, in order to provide a holistic picture of biomarker intercorrelations in the disease of study.…”

Does parents' socio-economic status matter in intentions of vaccinating against human papillomavirus for adolescent daughters?

“…Despite the fact that the current market price is around 12,000 NTD (about 400 USD), an acceptable price would be around 500 NTD (about 17 USD) as the ceiling 8 . Given that the societal barrier is the most challenging factor in implementing P4 medical practices (predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory) 9,10 , this research aims to explore whether or not the parents' socio-economic status will affect their decisions to purchase this vaccination service for their young teenagers, in the absence of a government subsidy.…”