When explaining a small change leading to much bigger and often unanticipated changes, in addition to “butterfly effect” of chaos theory, the “hummingbird effect” is often used.

An invention of mechanical printing by Gutenberg in 1440s enabled the mass production of Bibles, which contributed to the Christian reformation.

It also allowed numerous people to include reading as a daily routine, which led to the discovery that many people are far sighted. Demand for reading glasses exploded which prompted curious engineers to manufacture lenses; and lenses further led to invention of microscopes, which allowed scientists to learn that the human body is composed of cells.

At the time mechanical printing was developed, no one anticipated that it would lead to discovering that human bodies are composed of cells. A change in an area leading to larger changes which are seemingly completely unrelated is called the “hummingbird effect.”

Availing of personal computers at an affordable price of about $1,000 led to mass usage of computers, and this contributed significantly to use the internet and the development of the information technology revolution.

In this context, fast development of bio-technology and advancement of analytical tools allowed a decrease in the cost of genome analysis to about $1,000 recently. Easier access to genome information and analysis has been further triggering revolutionary changes in vast ranges of bio sectors.

In January of 2015, United States President Barack Obama announced that the Precision Medicine Initiative, which takes advantage of advances in genomics and the use of big data in precision medicine technologies, could accelerate biomedical discoveries and more effective diagnosis. Such precision diagnosis will lead to continuous innovation and growth of the precision health care service market.

With its objective of providing the public with individualized and precision medical services, South Korea is preparing to construct a health care platform. It will make use of individuals’ bio data collected from utilizing digital health care equipment and internet of things as well as analysis of big data from the public health care system.

Recently, the Korean Government announced that the Next Generation Hospitals and Medical Information System program will be developed. The major elements of the program are the Precision Medicine Cohort and the Platform to Support Research and Application, which makes use of a database of genome and diagnostic information collected voluntarily from 100,000 people.

It is hoped that the smart health care industry, which is a strategic priority industry of Korea, would help toward establishing precision medicine ecosystems to support not only the advancement of people’s health but also the creation of high value which would lead to employment gains for Korea.

As the propagation strategy of plants has led to the changing structure of hummingbird wings, it is exciting to dream about how a reduced cost of genome analysis would trigger vast and unanticipated changes in the health care market in the near future.

By Wahnkil Chung

Wahnkil Chung is president & CEO of Wonju Medical Industry Technovalley in Wonju, Gangwon Province. – Ed.