Personalized Medicine Overview
"Precision medicine is about moving beyond [the] one-size-fits-all approach to medicine and, instead, taking into account people’s genes, their microbiomes, their environments, and their lifestyles.” -Dr. Handelsman, Cornell University
What is personalized medicine and why should I be teaching about it in my classroom?
Personalized medicine is the way that healthcare is moving in the future. It is a proposed model that customizes healthcare based on the individual's genetics. Instead of just assessing your symptoms and prescribing you a medicine that may or may not fix the problem, personalized medicine looks to have doctors personalize your healthcare to you and what's right for you in the context of your genetics. In this model, medical decisions, practices, and products will be tailored specifically for each individual. President Obama in his 2015 State of the Union Address talked about the importance of personalized medicine moving forward. In his proposed $215 million precision medicine initiative, President Obama cited four key features of the initiative: to work closely with the NCI to develop new and effective treatments for cancer; to have the FDA evaluate next-generation DNA sequencing tests in different ways than older technologies have been evaluated; to have the NIH assemble a large group of volunteers who can provide a significant amount of informative data on the DNA bases of health and of disease; and finally, to work to protect patient privacy from day one.
Why should we teach high school students about personalized medicine?
High school students should have access to real-world meaningful examples that they can connect to their learning with genetics. The more connections that students can make, the deeper they will be able to learn the material. Personalized medicine is one such application that may affect all of their lives in the close future.
It is here. It is now. It is happening. And we should be informed.
How does this website help teach my students?
This website helps you to teach your students by providing detailed lesson-plans, activities, and corresponding resources in order to effectively transfer the information to students that keeps students attention and allows them to encode the information in a meaningful way for long term storage. By providing many different resources, students will remain engaged and excited about learning.
How specifically should I use this site?
1. Background for educators
If you are not very familiar with personalized medicine, it is recommended that you first read over the student modules. These will give you a solid understanding of the human microbiome. If you are looking for more information, see the list of resources or outside sites, an open access scientific journal, and news articles about the personalized medicine.
2. Decide if you will do a one-day or two-day lesson based off of time and interest.
Grade level of material on this site - The student information on this site is written for an 11-12th grade advanced biology student. It is ideal for use in Biology classes as well as special topics classrooms.
3. Using the material on this site for your lesson
When to do a personalized medicine lecture:
In a general biology course, the personalized medicine lecture is ideally done after you have had your general lecture on genetics. The materials on this site focus more on the concept of personalized medicine than detailed human genetics so it is not necessary to have covered have an in depth understanding before introducing this lesson
The night before class:
Assign your students to read the student modules of this website the night before class and have them answer the discussion questions.
OR
Select one of the news articles on personalized medicine from the useful links page. Assign this for your students to read the night before and ask them to write a summary of the reading to bring into class the next day. Alternatively, you could provide them with discussion questions for the particular article that they read.
Personalized medicine is the way that healthcare is moving in the future. It is a proposed model that customizes healthcare based on the individual's genetics. Instead of just assessing your symptoms and prescribing you a medicine that may or may not fix the problem, personalized medicine looks to have doctors personalize your healthcare to you and what's right for you in the context of your genetics. In this model, medical decisions, practices, and products will be tailored specifically for each individual. President Obama in his 2015 State of the Union Address talked about the importance of personalized medicine moving forward. In his proposed $215 million precision medicine initiative, President Obama cited four key features of the initiative: to work closely with the NCI to develop new and effective treatments for cancer; to have the FDA evaluate next-generation DNA sequencing tests in different ways than older technologies have been evaluated; to have the NIH assemble a large group of volunteers who can provide a significant amount of informative data on the DNA bases of health and of disease; and finally, to work to protect patient privacy from day one.
Why should we teach high school students about personalized medicine?
High school students should have access to real-world meaningful examples that they can connect to their learning with genetics. The more connections that students can make, the deeper they will be able to learn the material. Personalized medicine is one such application that may affect all of their lives in the close future.
It is here. It is now. It is happening. And we should be informed.
How does this website help teach my students?
This website helps you to teach your students by providing detailed lesson-plans, activities, and corresponding resources in order to effectively transfer the information to students that keeps students attention and allows them to encode the information in a meaningful way for long term storage. By providing many different resources, students will remain engaged and excited about learning.
How specifically should I use this site?
1. Background for educators
If you are not very familiar with personalized medicine, it is recommended that you first read over the student modules. These will give you a solid understanding of the human microbiome. If you are looking for more information, see the list of resources or outside sites, an open access scientific journal, and news articles about the personalized medicine.
2. Decide if you will do a one-day or two-day lesson based off of time and interest.
Grade level of material on this site - The student information on this site is written for an 11-12th grade advanced biology student. It is ideal for use in Biology classes as well as special topics classrooms.
3. Using the material on this site for your lesson
When to do a personalized medicine lecture:
In a general biology course, the personalized medicine lecture is ideally done after you have had your general lecture on genetics. The materials on this site focus more on the concept of personalized medicine than detailed human genetics so it is not necessary to have covered have an in depth understanding before introducing this lesson
The night before class:
Assign your students to read the student modules of this website the night before class and have them answer the discussion questions.
OR
Select one of the news articles on personalized medicine from the useful links page. Assign this for your students to read the night before and ask them to write a summary of the reading to bring into class the next day. Alternatively, you could provide them with discussion questions for the particular article that they read.