At the Right Time: Temporal Precision in Personalised Medicine

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Science
• Computational Biology
• Medical Informatics

Background:

• Personalized medicine initially focused on molecular precision.
• The temporal dimension of treatment timing has been underexplored.
• Next-generation precision medicine is increasingly incorporating temporal aspects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine how temporal precision is becoming a key feature of advanced personalized medicine.
• To identify how temporal precision reshapes therapeutic practices in immunotherapy and chronic inflammatory diseases (CID).

Main Methods:

• Qualitative interviews with experts in personalized immunotherapy and CID medicine.
• Analysis of how algorithmic tools and multiomics data integration enable temporal precision.
• Examination of five key aspects: extended prediction, timing, synchronization, treatment coordination, and feedback effects.

Main Results:

• Temporal precision is reshaping therapeutic practice through enhanced prediction, timing, synchronization, coordination, and feedback.
• Personalized cancer vaccines and precision inflammation therapies utilize algorithmic systems.
• These systems anticipate therapy effects, coordinate interventions, and dynamically adapt treatment schedules.

Conclusions:

• Precision medicine is shifting from solely molecular focus to incorporating the evolving temporality of disease and therapy.
• Diseases are increasingly viewed as dynamic processes, therapies as timed interventions, and patients within feedback loops.
• This represents a new development in precision medicine, emphasizing dynamic patient and treatment temporalities.