Abstract
Human beings have taken successive approaches for the understanding and management of diseases. Initially brewed in supernatural concepts and mystical procedures, a vigorous scientific approach has emerged on the grounds of fundamental disciplines such as anatomy, microbiology, biochemistry, physiology, immunology, pathology, and pharmacology. The resulting integrated knowledge contributed to the current classification of diseases and the way Medicine is carried out today. Despite considerable progress, this approach is rather insufficient when it comes to systemic inflammatory conditions, such as systemic lupus erythematosus, that covers clinical conditions ranging from mild pauci-symptomatic diseases to rapidly fatal conditions. The treatment for such conditions is often insufficient and novel approaches are needed for further progress in these areas of Medicine. A recent breakthrough has been achieved with respect to chronic auto-inflammatory syndromes, in which molecular dissection of underlying gene defects has provided directions for target-oriented therapy. Such approach may be amenable to application in systemic auto-immune diseases with the comprehension that such conditions may be the consequence of interaction of specific environmental stimuli and an array of several and interconnected gene polymorphisms. On the bulk of this transformation, the application of principles of pharmacogenetics may lead the way towards a progressively stronger personalized Medicine.
Highlights
Human beings have taken successive approaches for the understanding and management of diseases
With the advent of Renascence and the rising of the contemporary scientific system, as we know it today, different fields in natural sciences started to contribute to a body of objective knowledge that led to the establishment of the medical practice as we know today
Other scientific fields contributed to the building of a new body of knowledge that progressively allowed the conception of novel medical paradigms that gradually would replace the old ones
Summary
Human beings have struggled to provide help to those suffering from the diverse illnesses that affect mankind and other living beings. Other scientific fields contributed to the building of a new body of knowledge that progressively allowed the conception of novel medical paradigms that gradually would replace the old ones. For a considerable period of time, many of the involved professionals are bound to reject the novel ideas or to under-estimate the magnitude of the coming changes. To illustrate this point, let us suppose that a regular physician from the 17th century was to be confronted with a medical assessment of a fiction patient as of today (Table I). Novel scientific paradigms push the development of appropriate technology and demand novel classification systems. The same is true for Biology and related areas, including Medicine
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