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What Is Precision Medicine?

From the Desk of Dr. Danielle Meadows
Vice President of Research Programs & Operations

Professional headshot of Danielle Meadows smiling at the camera.

This month, I want to talk about something that spans all stages of the research process: the concept of precision medicine. Precision medicine is more broad than a specific stage of an individual study. Rather, it’s a research area, a kind of study, or a clinical approach to managing a disease. 

Graphic representation of 4 major stages of the research project: Stage 1: Study Design & IRB/Ethics Review, Stage 2: Recruitment & Data Collection, Stage 3: Data Analysis, Stage 4: Publication.

It has implications across all four stages of the research process above—from influencing study design, to refining recruitment of participants, informing approaches to data analysis, and impacting communication of and future use of the research results.

The Heart of the Matter

  • Precision medicine is a way of treating a disease differently based on an individual’s symptoms, genes, environment, or other factors. 
  • Research in this area is important for ME/CFS because it can help identify subgroups that are more likely to respond well to a specific drug.
  • OMF’s Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration has a precision medicine project that is trying to learn from a general practitioner as they try different drugs in study participants and monitor changes in each person’s symptoms and molecules in their body. Read more about the project on our website.

What is precision medicine?

Precision medicine, also known as personalized medicine, is an approach to preventing or treating a disease that is tailored to an individual’s circumstances. Those circumstances can include things like the person’s symptoms, genes, environment, and more. 

In the context of research, a precision medicine study is typically one that focuses on understanding and treating a particular subtype of a disease. It can identify things that will indicate whether a drug will be effective for an individual or investigate how well a drug works in a specific group of people. A common example of precision medicine being used today is the use of different medications for different types of breast cancer, which is based on specific molecules that are present (or not) on the breast cancer cells.

Why pursue precision medicine for ME/CFS?

With ME/CFS being such a complex disease that involves numerous systems in the body, precision medicine is an important component of work trying to improve patient outcomes. While we hope for and are trying to identify a cure for ME/CFS, simultaneously researching precision medicine approaches to treating the disease may help significantly improve quality of life.

At OMF’s Melbourne ME/CFS Collaboration, the team is conducting a precision medicine project called Personalized Treatment Trials (PTT). This study is following a general practitioner as they trial different medications based on a participant’s clinical presentation. The team will collect in-depth data from before, during, and after each treatment to understand biological-symptom dynamics and hopefully lead to better personalized management of ME/CFS in the future. Read more about the PTT project on our website.

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Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME / CFS) Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), Fibromyalgia Leading Research. Delivering Hope.Open Medicine Foundation®

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