The macro-ethics of genomics to health: the physiome project.

Advances in pharmacology and genomics, and their intervention in human biology are beyond our abilities to understand their consequences. Therapeutic intervention in highly complex, non-linear, adaptive biological systems results in some unforeseen and undesirable consequences. To do the most good with the least harm, the information on biological systems should be gathered into databases, and into comprehensive quantitative models that can help to predict the long-range effects of proposed interventions. This is a societal or professional macro-ethical imperative. The Physiome Project helps to meet this imperative via databasing and creating models and tools for large-scale integration.