The Significance of an Enhanced Concept of the Organism for Medicine

Abstract

Recent developments in evolutionary biology, comparative embryology, and systems biology suggest the necessity of a conceptual shift in the way we think about organisms. It is becoming increasingly evident that molecular and genetic processes are subject to extremely refined regulation and control by the cell and the organism, so that it becomes hard to define single molecular functions or certain genes as primary causes of specific processes. Rather, the molecular level is integrated into highly regulated networks within the respective systems. This has consequences for medical research in general, especially for the basic concept of personalized medicine or precision medicine. Here an integrative systems concept is proposed that describes the organism as a multilevel, highly flexible, adaptable, and, in this sense, autonomous basis for a human individual. The hypothesis is developed that these properties of the organism, gained from scientific observation, will gradually make it necessary to rethink the conceptual framework of physiology and pathophysiology in medicine.