China Embraces Precision Medicine on a Massive Scale
        
            By David Cyranoski, 
                Nature News
             | 01. 06. 2016
        
                    
                                    
                    
                                                                                                                                    
                                                                            
                              
    
  
  
    
  
          
  
      
    
             
  Untitled Document 
  
Formidable capacity in genome sequencing, access to millions of patients   and the promise of solid governmental support: those are the assets   that China hopes to bring to the nascent field of precision medicine, which uses genomic, physiological and other data to tailor treatments to individuals.
 
  Almost exactly one year after US President Barack Obama announced the Precision Medicine Initiative,   China is finalizing plans for its own, much larger project. But as   universities and sequencing companies line up to gather and analyse the   data, some observers worry that problems with the nation’s health-care   infrastructure — in particular a dearth of doctors — threaten the   effort’s ultimate goal of improving patient care.
 
  Precision   medicine harnesses huge amounts of clinical data, from genome sequences   to health records, to determine how drugs affect people in different   ways. By enabling physicians to target drugs only to those who will   benefit, such knowledge can cut waste, improve health outcomes using   existing treatments, and inform drug development. For example, it is now   clear that individuals with a certain mutation (which is mostly found...
 
 
  
 
    
    
  
   
                        
                                                                                
                 
                                                    
                            
                                  
    
  
  
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