Precision medicine: Towards complexity science age

Abstract

Precision medicine (PM) refers to the tailoring of the prevention and treatment strategies to the individual characteristics of each patient. Following the vigorous advocacy of the U.S. President Obama and China's President Xi, PM has now become a hot topic of common concern worldwide. PM does not merely refer to the skill set level but rather a comprehensive medical methodology. Hence, there is PM that builds on the analytical methodology of Western medical system as well as PM that builds on Chinese medicine (CM). The differences between the two systems, fundamentally speaking, are the differences in methodology to describe the body constitution that based on reductionism and holism. Today, as science advances to complex systems, the mainstream analytical reductionism advances to the holistic synthesis era, it is imperative to introduce CM's holistic body constitution to the modern medical system in order to progress to PM. PM with its foundation on holistic body constitution, is a medical system that integrates Western medicine and CM, is the highest attainment of "PM" in the future.

Keywords: complexity science; personalized medicine; precision medicine.