A Behind-the-Scenes Story of Precision Medicine

Let me start with a few words about the goals and intended audience for this introduction to republication of two reports of the U.S. National Research Council （NRC） - Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome （1988） and Toward Precision Medicine （2011）. I do not intend to summarize what the reports say. They are both short, well written, and can speak for themselves. I encourage readers who want a quick sum- mary to read these reports the way most policy-makers do： start with the Executive Summaries, particularly the Conclu- sions and Recommendations. NRC committees write these summaries with great care since they are read far more widely, and by a more influential audience, than the bodies of the reports. With respect to audience, I assume this book will be of greatest interest to scientists and policy-makers interested in how the policy-making apparatus in the United States works and how it shaped two key initiatives in biology and medicine during their formative stages.