NHS Panel Looks at Systems Medicine

Members of the NHS panel discussion on systems medicine & health care delivery

On Friday, Sept. 12, NHS hosted a morning panel discussion on “Systems Medicine & Health Care Delivery,” as a part of the daylong inaugural convocation ceremonies at Georgetown University Medical Center.

NHS Dean Bette Jacobs moderated the panel, which included Patricia Grady, director of the National Institute of Nursing Research; Leroy Hood, founder of the Institute for Systems Biology and recipient of GUMC’s Cura Personalis Award; Gregory Downing, project director of the personalized health care initiative at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and Frederick S. Lee, product manager for personalized medicine and genomics at McKesson.

“While we will focus throughout the day … on the science and unlocking our understanding with good questions, with solutions to problems, [and] with new tools, we have a panel today who will speak to what it means to actually have questions that solve problems of people, communities, and society,” Jacobs said.

After her introduction, Hood led the panel discussion.

A pioneer in systems medicine, Hood earned the 1987 Lasker Award—one of science’s most prestigious honors—for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of immune diversity. 

He is also one of only seven scientists, of more than 6,000 total, elected to all three major academies: the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.

“There are emerging technologies that will really be transformational,” Hood told the audience.  “One, in less than 10 years, we’ll all be able to sequence our genomes individually. 

“Number two, in, I would say five to eight years, we’ll be able to measure from a fraction of blood hundreds, if not thousands, of these organ-specific proteins and do the full systems assessments,” he said.

“And three, there will be very powerful imaging techniques that will allow us to visualize in the living human organism the location and distribution of disease and in fact see how it changes in response to therapy,” he said.

“So all of these things—the systems view of disease, the new technologies, the new computational tools—take us to a view of systems medicine that manifests itself in what we call P4 medicine.”

The emerging model of P4 medicine, according to Hood, is predictive, personalized, preventive, and participatory. 

After Hood’s address, the other panelists spoke on a variety of topics related to systems medicine.  Grady talked about the role of nurses in advancing the field.  Downing showcased the workforce adaptations that may be needed.  And Lee illustrated how new health IT support systems must be developed and implemented in clinical settings.

“The coming years will bring significant advances in understanding health and disease in terms of systems biology,” said Grady.  “But the translation of these discoveries into improved patient health will be the responsibility of those individuals on the front lines at the patient interface.”

“Now is the time to be preparing for those coming changes,” she said.

During the official convocation ceremony in the afternoon, two NHS professors were recognized for outstanding contributions in research and teaching.

Sharon Ramey, director of the Center on Health and Education at NHS, was recognized for being among the top five percent of GUMC faculty receiving federal awards in 2007. 

And Joan Riley, assistant professor of nursing and human science, was recognized for having received the Dorothy Brown Award, the university’s most prestigious award for undergraduate teaching, given to an faculty member whose contributions have helped make Georgetown an academically stimulating campus.