US Precision-Medicine Proposal Sparks Questions
By Sara Reardon,
Nature
| 01. 22. 2015
Untitled Document
With the pipeline of traditional drugs drying up, researchers are increasingly attempting to customize treatments based on a person's genetics or environment. Now the US government wants to get in on the act.
During his State of the Union address to Congress on 20 January, President Barack Obama announced a programme called the Precision Medicine Initiative. “I want the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new era of medicine — one that delivers the right treatment at the right time,” he said.
The White House is remaining tight-lipped about the details of the programme, declining to answer questions from Nature — as is the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is expected to be a key partner in the effort. But Kay Holcombe, senior vice-president for science policy at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) in Washington DC, says that her conversations with the NIH suggest that the agency will seek to match genome information with many other types of data, such as health records and blood-test results.
The agency seems to...
Related Articles
By Carly Mallenbaum, Axios [cites Emily Galpern] | 03.29.2026
More Americans are turning to surrogacy to build their families, as the practice becomes more common and more publicly discussed.
Why it matters: As surrogacy becomes more visible and accessible, ethical, legal and cultural tensions become harder to ignore...
By Carly Mallenbaum, Axios [cites Surrogacy360] | 03.29.2026
Without a federal law, surrogacy in the U.S. is governed by a patchwork of state regulations/
Why it matters: Confusing, varied local rules can determine everything from whether agreements are legally binding to who is recognized as a parent at...
Cathy Tie seems to be good at starting businesses but not so dedicated to maintaining them. CGS, like many others, first heard of her thanks to Caiwei Chen and Antonio Regalado in MIT Technology Review, May 2025, as the partner (perhaps bride) of the notorious Chinese scientist He Jiankui, described in the headline as “China’s Frankenstein.” He prefers “Chinese Darwin.” She ran his Twitter account for a while, contributing such gems as:
Get in luddite, we’re going gene editing...
By Laura DeFrancesco, Nature Biotechnology | 03.17.2026
The first gene editors designed to fix genetic lesions in mutation-agnostic ways are poised to enter the clinic. Tessera Therapeutics and Alltrna, two Flagship Pioneering-funded companies, are gearing up to test novel genetic medicines in humans. Tessera received regulatory clearance...
