--- title: The Problem And Promise Of Precision Medicine description: Tom Maniatis, director of the Columbia University Precision Medicine Initiative, discusses the future of precision medicine as it relates to treating deadly diseases canonical: https://time.com/3740433/problem-promise-precision-medicine/ author: Francesca Trianni article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-08T15:38:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:07:44.121Z article:section: Health og:title: The Problem and Promise of Precision Medicine og:description: Tom Maniatis, director of the Columbia University Precision Medicine Initiative, discusses its future og:url: https://time.com/3740433/problem-promise-precision-medicine/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2c909bae6c357dff/6987ea18cd1bba5ff96f8d68/precision-medicine.jpg?branch=production&width=832&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 832 og:image:height: 468 og:image:alt: precision-medicine og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Problem and Promise of Precision Medicine twitter:description: Tom Maniatis, director of the Columbia University Precision Medicine Initiative, discusses its future twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2c909bae6c357dff/6987ea18cd1bba5ff96f8d68/precision-medicine.jpg?branch=production&width=832&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Problem and Promise of Precision Medicine > Sponsored content. 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A recent announcement of massive funding toward precision medicine by President Obama administration is prompting a bearish sentiment among medical businesses_ by [Francesca Trianni](https://time.com/author/francesca-trianni/) and [Diane Tsai](https://time.com/author/diane-tsai/) Apr 8, 2015 3:38 PM UTC by [Francesca Trianni](https://time.com/author/francesca-trianni/) and [Diane Tsai](https://time.com/author/diane-tsai/) Apr 8, 2015 3:38 PM UTC ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] This is going to be completely unprecedented. It is going to affect medicine in ways we've never seen before. You can match a blood transfusion to a blood type. What if matching a cancer cure to our genetic code was just as easy, just as standard? And that's the promise of precision medicine. Delivering the right treatments at the right time, every time, to the right person. Precision medicine enables the ultimate delivery of personalized medicine, which means that you come to your doctor, you have your genetic information, and the doctor can use that genetic information to specifically design treatments for you. But obviously, there'll be thousands of individuals that have your disease. Disease in your gene. And so it's personal for you, but it's also treating large numbers of people in the same situation. [ MUSIC ] We can look at individual tumors. We can even look at individual cells within tumors and understand how their system has gone awry. It's possible to analyze this very complex data using state- of- the- art computer algorithms, to be able to see the interaction of proteins in a cancer cell and to design drugs that will inhibit or treat them. A really good example of how all this works is with a drug called Gleevec back and this is a drug for a certain type of Leukemia. This drug had a miraculous effect, I mean it basically cured the disease. However, the individuals who received this, six months, a year later, it was back. Then, a second drug was developed. We had the tools to go back, look at the sequence or that reverted protein, and know where the change was and then design a. Second drug to address that. And now the combination of those two drugs that are used in sequence basically has cured one form of this disease. And so I think that's what's going to happen. There'll be more and more examples of cases where we can join genetics, biology and medicine. [ MUSIC ] In heart disease, Department of Physiology ANDREW MARKS has been studying a receptor that is absolute central to how the heart functions. And recently they determined the three dimensional structure of this protein that has been lead. Very quickly to the development of small molecule drugs that address certain heart disease. That defines precision medicine because it can't be more precise than having a high resolution three dimensional structure that tells you something about the human disease. What's so exciting is that we have the possibility. Of leading an entirely new era of medicine that makes sure new jobs and new industries and new life saving treatments for diseases are created right here in the United States. Five years ago, it was about $ 10, 000 to sequence a whole genome. Ten years before that, almost $ 1 billion. Spent worldwide in sequencing this. Today, we can sequence a whole genome in 24 hours for $ 1, 500. But when you take 1, 500 times the number of people you need to see before you begin to learn the relationship between the genetics and medicine, that's a very big number. It is difficult to forecast exactly what the financial implications of precision medicine are going to be. On the one hand, if drugs are tailored to very specific populations, the prices are higher, because the value to the patient is also higher. On the other hand, today many people are taking drugs that are really not doing them any good. We can avoid the unnecessary cost of inappropriate medication. That would be cost saving. It's important for the lay public to understand that this doesn't happen overnight. The genetics is now straightforward. We can sequence very rapidly, very cheaply. But we still have to add on to that the drugs developing. 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