During the past decade, life sciences and information technology began to converge, resulting in significant and life-impacting research -- the result with perhaps the highest impact to date being the sequencing of the human genome and its influence on how clinical researchers now investigate methods and molecules that could improve the human condition. Knowledge gained through human genome sequencing is driving recent achievements in genomic, proteomic, molecular biology and bioinformatics. As this decade progresses, next-generation medical science technology and capabilities, enabled by increasingly "smarter" information technology, will change the discovery, development and delivery of new treatments even more dramatically. For example, biopharmaceutical research will continue to shift from a small, molecule-centered approach to one of stronger biomedical emphasis. This shift will focus on moving from the molecular actions of small molecule compounds toward delivering biologic-based diagnostics and therapeutics. Thus, healthcare will become increasingly personalized as these biologic-based diagnostics and treatments become standard practice. Significant changes in information technology have occurred over the past decade. Recent information technology advances have significantly reduced the cost of storage, enabling the possibility of access to hundreds of biological databases produced by research groups around the world. Storage technology discoveries, high-performance computing technologies and advances in digitization technologies have given rise to the digitization of patient clinical data (i.e., electronic medical records) and made digital medical imaging increasingly common. Semiconductor technologies have been used to help create microarrays for more complex and efficient gene expression. These scientific advances, combined with new progress in information technology, are giving "new life" to researchers, physicians and patients in medicine and life sciences, forever changing the methods used for preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic activities. The aggregate result of the combination of these advances in medical science and information technology, along with rising consumerism, has the potential to create significant medical breakthroughs benefiting the human condition. To read the complete study, download the PDF file at the top of this page. | 
