Biography:

Rafael RANGEL-ALDAO received his M.D. from University Central of Venezuela, and Ph.D. at the Department of Molecular Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. He is an Invited Professor of Digital Molecular Medicine at Simon Bolivar University, and President of Genotron, a biotechnology company of preventative health and wellness. For a thirty year span, Dr. Rangel-Aldao has served both in the academic sector as professor of biotechnology at several major institutions of Venezuela (1979-2009), and National Manager of Biotechnology, and then Director of Research and Innovation at Empresas Polar (1987-2005), the largest food conglomerate of Venezuela and the third of Latin America. Prof. Rangel-Aldao has also published extensively in a wide range of fields from biochemistry, molecular biology, chemistry, plant physiology, and biomedical research, to food product development, and agricultural research and plant breeding. Rangel-Aldao is author of several triadic patents in biotechnology applied to both the food and biomedical industries. Born in Caracas, Rangel-Aldao has received numerous awards and prizes; he is a member of several scientific societies, and successively a visiting scientist at Yale, Louvain, Sao Paulo, Catholic of Chile and Arizona State University. Prof. Rangel-Aldao is currently a member of the editorial board of Electronic Journal of Biotechnology, Recent Patents on Biotechnology, and Revista Colombiana de Biotecnologa, as well as a writer of scientific journalism, activity that has rewarded him with several prizes. He is a frequent speaker at universities and companies, and a consultant for several Governments of Latin America and UN agencies.

Abstract:

Evolution in health care: from Cartesian Reductionism to Systems Wellness

Health care seems to be at a transition phase in its evolution. Diseases are no longer considered as separate nosologic entities, but the consequence of disequilibrium of complex networks dominated by few hubs connecting whole systems spanning the individuals physiology and the nature and impact of its environment. From a focus on how to treat particular ailments after they are clinically manifested, the emphasis is now on how to preserve a persons wellness to avoid or retard the advent of disease, as well as to predict risk by the study of stacks of networks encompassing informational biomolecules and their social life from the genomic level up to their phenotypic expression. A major factor contributing to this shift is the emergence of biology as a branch of information theory and technology, the advent of systems biology as an unprecedented synthesis of science with engineering, and the evolution of current thinking from Cartesian reductionism to complex systems. The author will present an experimental attempt to preserve or improve wellness and prevent disease, with a multidisciplinary approach organized in the form of stacked networks of collaboration between scientists, health care professionals, volunteers and their employers participating in this program.