title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Morphology, Centre for Biomedical Education and Research, Faculty of Health, School of Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University, Stockumer Strasse 10, 58453 Witten, Germany.
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8934-1917
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rosslenbroich