Jack of All Tests
In an
ever-expanding medical field, advancements in technology aid research to keep
up with the changing times. A DarkDaily news
release recently discussed the potential impact of computational medicine in
a laboratory setting – noting the work of researchers at Johns Hopkins
University. The team analyzed what could
be the next big change for both laboratorians and physicians in the industry.
“We are
poised at an exciting moment in medicine,” Raimond L. Winslow, PhD, Director of
the Institute for Computational Medicine is quoted in an article
on LaboratoryEquipment.com.“ Computational medicine will continue to grow as a discipline
because it is providing a new quantitative approach to understanding, detecting
and treating disease at the level of the individual.”
Recent
advances in technology have allowed the concept of using simulated models to
predict the progress of a disease or the effectiveness of a treatment to come
to fruition. Computational medicine combines techniques from a variety of
different fields, including engineering, mathematics and computer science, and was
cited in the DarkDaily release as “the natural progression of more powerful
computing, better modeling programs and a flood of raw biomedical data.” These
models and images can then be used to diagnose a disease, identify its causes
and possible progressions and accurately predict potential treatments and
therapies.
“The field
has exploded. There is a whole new community of people being trained in
mathematics, computer science and engineering, and they are being cross-trained
in biology,” Winslow continued in the DarkDaily news release. “This allows them
to bring a whole new perspective to medical diagnosis and treatment. Engineers traditionally construct models of
the systems they’re designing. In our
case, we’re building computational models of what we [are] trying to study,
which is disease.”
In the LaboratoryEquipment.com story, Wilson is quoted on the shift of computational medicine into the clinical setting, saying “the transition is already underway.” Of course, there are still a lot of obstacles to overcome before we can expect to see computational medicine become “a routine part of patient care,” but the prospect of accurate and predictive testing without having to subject a patient to multiple treatments promotes optimism with interesting side effects to the industry. As new approaches like computational medicine become standardized, doctors and researchers stand to become well-versed in multiple backgrounds – veritable Jacks of All Trades -- allowing for an understanding of possible treatments and outcomes beyond a diagnosis.