T hevision of precisionmedicine is to prescribe the right treatment to the right patient in the right dose at the right time and to expect the optimal outcome. Precision medicine,… Click to show full abstract
T hevision of precisionmedicine is to prescribe the right treatment to the right patient in the right dose at the right time and to expect the optimal outcome. Precision medicine, as applied to complex disorders such as pancreatitis, is the inverse and complement tomodernWesternMedicine.WesternMedicine is a top-down, population-based approach of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and evidence-basedmedicine. Precision medicine is a bottom-up approach starting with the mechanisms of cellor system-based disorders. Identifying the mechanisms of a disorder before it becomes an advanced, pathology-defined disease is needed for targeted, personalized therapy. Although the high-level concepts are becoming clear, there remainmany information, integration, translation, logistic, and acceptance barriers that future, well-designed, basic and clinical research projects will need to answer. In this way, the insights from precision medicine will become accepted evidence-based medicine. To address these issues, the National Institute of Diabetes andDigestive and Kidney Diseases held a workshop entitled “Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Disease: Knowledge Gaps and Research Opportunities” on July 24, 2019, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (see workshop report, this issue). The workshop featured a number of exciting new technologies and approaches, but major barriers remain.
               
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