2024-04-19 02:00:45
Life as we know it is written in the genome of the enormous organisms we share the planet with. In this sense, the impressive progress of genomic sequencing techniques allows us to have more and more data related to the code of life. There is therefore an avalanche of data that obscures the interpretation of how that code works and how continuous advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are also involved.
We observe how machine learning techniques today train reliable models that generate predictive knowledge from comparing data from people with and without a certain pathology. Knowledge of great diagnostic value. The magic of mathematics which, with suitably trained and adjusted functions, predicts whether we have a disease or not.
Furthermore, processes based on explainable artificial intelligence, with precise conceptual and ontological support, provide explanatory knowledge that clarifies the cause of a predictive diagnosis. It’s regarding the power of conceptual modeling that allows us to interpret reality.
Predictive and explanatory knowledge that AI combines and puts at the service of modern software platforms for clinical diagnosis and the selection of corresponding treatments in a medicine that has never been imagined before. Predictive models made with machine learning techniques that predict whether we have cancer. Models with explainable AI that explain why we have it. And precision genomic medicine which, thanks to recent advances in gene editing mechanisms, is able to correct the genomic errors that cause the disease.
Predicting cancer, explaining the causes and correcting them at their origin are scientific processes in which we advance step by step in an unstoppable manner. Processes that might previously only be attributed to magic or religion, and which are now on the horizon of science. Hundreds of ambitious research projects are steadily moving in this direction around the world. Day by day we understand more and better which errors explain the appearance of the diseases we are talking regarding. We understand more and better which instructions in this life’s programming language explain certain behaviors. We can understand which configuration of that code is associated with certain characteristics of a person.
A process in which very different roles intervene, for example geneticists, clinical experts of all kinds, software engineers, computer scientists, biologists, bioinformaticians, biotechnologists, anthropologists or philosophers. Everyone is developing an enormous and cross-cutting universal scientific effort, where each player contributes their role. And in this joint effort everything is necessary, but none is sufficient in itself.
But to take this big step, as Homo sapiens, we must understand that only through cooperation and solidarity participation of all actors can we win the game and achieve the goal of being a Homo genius, able to decipher the language of life, to understand it and even manipulate it.
The challenge is exciting and the risk is also clear. Knowing them and avoiding them is everyone’s responsibility. We are at a moment where we will be able to decide what kind of humanity we want, and as such we have an enormous historical responsibility. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to conclude that we are facing a new ‘renaissance’, which will take us from Homo sapiens to Homo genius.
A huge step forward in human history that would mean truly personalized and precise medicine. Because there is nothing more personal than the genomic code that makes us unique individuals of our species, nor more precise than tailoring treatments to the particularities of that unique individual code. It is this challenge that lies in our hands. A new way of understanding medicine following so many centuries of history. Exciting times for ethics that must provide ‘humane’ answers to approaches that have never before been possible.
If we are supposedly the most advanced species, we have a moral obligation of the first magnitude to our planet: to harness all this disruptive knowledge to create a better world. Let us welcome this looming Homo genius, but above all let us take the great step for the benefit of all mankind.
1713520632
#medicine #Homo #geni