My journey to science started when I was six years old and my brother was born with Down’s syndrome. At that time no one—physicians or parents—could even begin to explain what happened when a baby was born with Down’s syndrome. Over time, that set me thinking about health care and disease and their complexities, although in a very inchoate manner. I really got started helping unravel the mysteries of medicine at Caltech in 1970, as an assistant professor and a researcher with a strong interest in human biology and an awareness of its enormous complexity. Medicine in those days (and even today) was very much like the fable of the elephant and the six blind men—each of the men feels a different part of the elephant and each describes the animal distinctly, as a fan or a stump or a spear. Physicians at that time and today were only able to access a few of the external dimensions that characterized what the elephant/human really was. We did not have a language to think about the complexity of human biology. Later, systems biology allowed us to define and think about these complexities; we could then begin developing systems-driven technologies, systems-driven strategies, and systems-driven computation platforms and algorithms for unraveling this complexity. In 1973, I read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (1970), which describes paradigm changes in physics. Paradigm changes—revolutionary new ways of thinking about or practicing a discipline—are really difficult to conceptualize and even more difficult to achieve. Even if you validate a paradigm shift, it is not always easy to get it accepted, because people are reluctant to give up long-held beliefs. Scientists are extremely conservative with regard to the acceptance of new ideas. Over my career, I’ve been involved in seven paradigm changes in biology and medicine—and I’m working on the seeds of an eighth. All of them deal with human complexity. Collectively, they have framed the emergence of 21st-century medicine. The focus of 21st-century medicine will be the eighth paradigm change: bringing systems biology to health care through deep phenotyping of individuals and scientific wellness. I use the term “we” throughout this discussion, as I had many colleagues who helped with every phase of these paradigm changes and my later career.

中文翻译：

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技术、大数据和系统方法如何改变医学

我的科学之旅始于我 6 岁，我弟弟出生时患有唐氏综合症。那时，没有人——医生或父母——甚至无法解释当婴儿出生时患有唐氏综合症时发生了什么。随着时间的推移，这让我开始思考医疗保健和疾病及其复杂性，尽管以一种非常不成熟的方式。1970 年，我真正开始在加州理工学院帮助解开医学之谜，当时我是一名助理教授和研究员，对人类生物学有着浓厚的兴趣，并意识到其巨大的复杂性。那个时代（甚至今天）的医学很像大象和六个盲人的寓言——每个人都感觉大象的不同部分，每个人都清楚地描述了动物，如扇子、残肢或矛。当时和今天的医生只能访问表征大象/人类真实情况的一些外部维度。我们没有语言来思考人类生物学的复杂性。后来，系统生物学让我们能够定义和思考这些复杂性；然后，我们可以开始开发系统驱动技术、系统驱动策略以及系统驱动计算平台和算法，以解决这种复杂性。1973 年，我阅读了托马斯·库恩 (Thomas Kuhn) 的《科学革命的结构》（The Structure of Scientific Revolutions，1970 年），其中描述了物理学中的范式变化。范式变化——思考或实践一门学科的革命性新方法——真的很难概念化，甚至更难实现。即使您验证了范式转变，也并不总是容易被接受，因为人们不愿意放弃长期持有的信念。科学家们在接受新想法方面极为保守。在我的职业生涯中，我参与了生物学和医学领域的七项范式变革——我正在研究第八项的种子。所有这些都涉及人类的复杂性。他们共同构筑了 21 世纪医学的出现。21 世纪医学的重点将是第八次范式变革：通过对个人和科学健康的深度表型分析，将系统生物学引入医疗保健。我在整个讨论中使用了“我们”这个词，因为我有很多同事在这些范式变化的每个阶段以及我后来的职业生涯中都提供了帮助。我参与了生物学和医学领域的七种范式变革——我正在研究第八种的种子。所有这些都涉及人类的复杂性。他们共同构筑了 21 世纪医学的出现。21 世纪医学的重点将是第八次范式变革：通过对个人和科学健康的深度表型分析，将系统生物学引入医疗保健。我在整个讨论中使用了“我们”这个词，因为我有很多同事在这些范式变化的每个阶段以及我后来的职业生涯中都提供了帮助。我参与了生物学和医学领域的七种范式变革——我正在研究第八种的种子。所有这些都涉及人类的复杂性。他们共同构筑了 21 世纪医学的出现。21 世纪医学的重点将是第八次范式变革：通过对个人和科学健康的深度表型分析，将系统生物学引入医疗保健。我在整个讨论中使用了“我们”这个词，因为我有很多同事在这些范式变化的每个阶段以及我后来的职业生涯中都提供了帮助。通过对个人和科学健康的深入表型分析，将系统生物学带入医疗保健领域。我在整个讨论中使用了“我们”这个词，因为我有很多同事在这些范式变化的每个阶段以及我后来的职业生涯中都提供了帮助。通过对个人和科学健康的深度表型分析，将系统生物学带入医疗保健领域。我在整个讨论中使用了“我们”这个词，因为我有很多同事在这些范式变化的每个阶段以及我后来的职业生涯中都提供了帮助。