Perspectives of biologists, epidemiologists and geneticists' controversies in sciences and health system reforms

The global burden of diseases is predicted to increase considerably in the coming decades (GBD project, WHO, 2010 [1]) - WHO-World Bank study, 1991 [2]); for example, the World Alzheimer Report and the UN Declaration on Non-Communicable Diseases estimate that the burden associated with dementia will increase 2-fold by 2030 and 3-4-fold by 2050. Therefore, urgent needs must be met in order to help policy-makers deal with the increasing societal costs of diseases. Recent technologies can facilitate the detection and prevention of mild cases of cognitive impairments, or integrative genomic medicine can target more individualized genetic traits and pedigrees; however, scientists do not necessarily agree: results from a recent population-based study using population imaging [3] differed from results obtained using integrative genomics approaches [4], and controversy exists between molecular biologists [5,6] and geneticists [7,8] with respect to asthma genetics. These differences have led to different predictive disease models and can influence the assessment of aging and environmental modifiers. This paper highlights implications for the governance of health systems using current debates on the evolution of these major fields of science. In addition, this paper discusses the potential translation of these models for use in clinical practice, particularly with telemedicine and telecare dominated by new IT technologies and challenges of science in transition.