Institute For The Future

From Computational to Biological Previews

At the moment, genetic medicine and genetic research relies on collecting lots of data, analyzing it to look for statistical associations between genes and phenotypic traits, and hoping the math--and the methods--worked out okay. New techniques from regenerative medicine should dramatically improve that process by enabling researchers to reverse engineer cells with specific mutations and test how different chemical or environmental inputs impact those cell types.

The advantages to moving from computational to biological previews stem from eliminating the need to model future impacts or attempting to draw associations in real-world situations.  Instead, testing specific biological tissues would offer a much greater level of precision--and much more targeted findings.  For example, most pharmaceuticals work for only a subset of the population--in the neighborhood of about half.  By testing the effects of drugs on tissues with genetic associations, researchers will be able to gauge how well--or poorly--genetic subpopulations respond to drugs.  Similarly, it will be possible to test to see if tissues form specific subpopulations are more prone to side effects or adverse reactions.

Though the immediate use of these types of cells will be in drug discovery, it would be feasible to use similar methods to test the effects of non-pharmaceutical (environmental); it might also be feasible for individuals to use these methods in a reasonably widespread way to test their own tissue reactions (obviously, with the supervision/analysis of trained personnel) to assess potential reactions to drugs in advance, effectively enabling individuals to preview different treatments and pick the most likely to work based on their underlying biology (while bypassing messier statistical methods of testing treatments.)

 

Sciences:

Regenerative medicine: Regenerative medicine here should enable the engineering of different tissue types that reside in petri dishes but are still, effectively, living tissues.

 

Genetics: Genetic testing here offers a way to generate hypothesis at the aggregate level--by, for example, testing the cell lines of a group with a specific SNP; the combination of the two fields also allows for testing and then retrospective analysis, as well as the potential ability to test how individuals respond.

(Updated with answers to rachel's questions)

What is the idea/forecast?: Renegerative medicine will allow us to directly preview the effects of inputs on our cells/organs without necessarily understanding the science well enough to be able to build complete digital models of biology.

 

What science/technologies are involved?: See above - genetics, regenerative medicine

What's the expected health outcome?  (How does this address the challenge of transforming bodies and lifestyles?):

- Can help individuals know which environmental stimuli, etc. to seek out and avoid based on biology

- Will be (likely) more useful in drug discovery/pharma research

 

What is the scale?:
- Pharma/large scale at first

- potentially individual level previews

What is the timing/pace of change of the forecast?:

- See above--expect big scale impacts first; we're seeing this become useful in drug discovery now; may potentially be relevant at the individual level a few years out, but this is far more uncertain.