Advancing to precision medicine through big data and artificial intelligence

Abstract According to the Precision Medicine Initiative, a long-term research measure involving the National Institutes of Health and other centers, precision medicine is defined as “an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person.” By contributing to the prevention and treatment of disease and improved health, big data and artificial intelligence play critical roles in precision medicine. The idea of harnessing all available data and techniques can be traced to the Huangdi Neijing, a book about ancient Chinese medicine practices. Currently, we have the tools to collect vast amounts of genomics data along with state-of-the-art data analytics for interpretation. With the availability of new resources and techniques, we are advancing our understanding of genomics and medicine with increasing precision.