Systems medicine is an interdisciplinary field of study that looks at the systems of the human body as part of an integrated whole, incorporating biochemical, physiological, and environment interactions. Systems medicine draws on systems science and

systems biology Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological syst ...

, and considers complex interactions within the human body in light of a patient's

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

, behavior and environment. The earliest uses of the term ''systems medicine'' appeared in 1992, in an article on systems medicine and pharmacology by T. Kamada. An important topic in systems medicine and

systems biomedicine Systems biomedicine, also called systems biomedical science, is the application of systems biology to the understanding and modulation of developmental and pathological processes in humans, and in animal and cellular models. Whereas systems biolo ...

is the development of computational models that describe disease progression and the effect of therapeutic interventions. More recent approaches include the redefinition of disease phenotypes based on common mechanisms rather than symptoms. These provide then therapeutic targets including network pharmacology and drug repurposing. Since 2018, there is a dedicated scientific journal, ''Systems Medicine''.

Fundamental schools of systems medicine

Essentially, the issues dealt with by systems medicine can be addressed in two basic ways, molecular (MSM) and organismal systems medicine (OSM):

Molecular systems medicine (MSM)

This approach relies on

omics The branches of science known informally as omics are various disciplines in biology whose names end in the suffix ''-omics'', such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, phenomics and transcriptomics. Omics aims at the coll ...

technologies (

proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

transcriptomics Transcriptomics technologies are the techniques used to study an organism's transcriptome, the sum of all of its RNA transcripts. The information content of an organism is recorded in the DNA of its genome and expressed through transcription. H ...

phenomics Phenomics is the systematic study of traits that make up a phenotype, and was coined by UC Berkeley and LBNL scientist Steven A. Garan. As such, it is a transdisciplinary area of research that involves biology, data sciences, engineering and other f ...

metabolomics Metabolomics is the scientific study of chemical processes involving metabolites, the small molecule substrates, intermediates, and products of cell metabolism. Specifically, metabolomics is the "systematic study of the unique chemical fingerprin ...

etc.) and tries to understand

physiological Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemica ...

processes and the evolution of

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...

in a bottom-up strategy, i.e. by simulating, synthesising and integrating the description of molecular processes to deliver an explanation of an organ system or even the organism in its whole.

Organismal systems medicine (OSM)

This branch of systems medicine, going back to the traditions of

Ludwig von Bertalanffy Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (19 September 1901 – 12 June 1972) was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, ap ...

systems theory Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...

and

biological cybernetics Biocybernetics is the application of cybernetics to biological science disciplines such as neurology and multicellular systems. Biocybernetics plays a major role in systems biology, seeking to integrate different levels of information to understand ...

is a top-down strategy that starts with the description of large, complex processing structures (i.e.

neural network A neural network is a network or neural circuit, circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up ...

feedback loop Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled ...

s and other

motif Motif may refer to: General concepts * Motif (chess composition), an element of a move in the consideration of its purpose * Motif (folkloristics), a recurring element that creates recognizable patterns in folklore and folk-art traditions * Moti ...

s) and tries to find sufficient and necessary conditions for the corresponding functional organisation on a molecular level. A common challenge for both schools is the translation between the molecular and the organismal level. This can be achieved e.g. by affine subspace mapping and

sensitivity analysis Sensitivity analysis is the study of how the uncertainty in the output of a mathematical model or system (numerical or otherwise) can be divided and allocated to different sources of uncertainty in its inputs. A related practice is uncertainty ana ...

, but also requires some preparative steps on both ends of the epistemic gap.

Systems Medicine Education

Georgetown University is the first in the Nation to launch a MS program in Systems Medicine. It has developed a rigorous curriculum, The programs have been developed and led by Dr. Sona Vasudevan, PhD. https://systemsmedicine.georgetown.edu/

List of research groups

References

{{Reflist

Medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, and Health promotion ...