Diagnosing disease before symptoms develop.

Researchers at GE Global Research are imagining and making possible a world where diseases and conditions can be diagnosed long before traditional symptoms develop.

One of the Advanced Technology focuses at Global Research is Molecular Imaging and Diagnostics. Recent scientific breakthroughs at GE Global Research have produced a dramatic understanding of disease processes and are changing the ways we can diagnose diseases. GE researchers are pushing the field of “Early Health” from a “see-and-treat” model to a “predict-and-prevent” model. In the future, physicians will look at your individual molecular make-up to understand what diseases you are most susceptible to, and which therapies you would respond to best. Molecular medicine technology can also diagnose disease at the earliest stages of onset, which increases the success after treatment.

In addition to diagnosing disease, these molecular diagnostics can be used to track the effectiveness of therapies. Doctors can use molecular diagnostics to “see” the diseased cells they are trying to fix. Additionally, genetic information also could be used to design a treatment that is tailored to an individual’s molecular makeup – a concept referred to as “personalized healthcare.” GE Global Research is working with leading pharmaceutical companies to develop new molecular diagnostics in conjunction with targeted therapeutics.