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Precision medicine in intensive care
- Professor Anthony Gordon MBEProfessor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care at Imperial College London
Key points
- Syndromes such as sepsis and ARDS are heterogeneous: some patients benefit from a treatment, some are unaffected and some may be harmed.
- Blood biomarkers, including RNA and proteins, define natural differences between patients, and these can now be measured rapidly at the bedside.
- Precision medicine trials measure biomarkers, split patients into groups and evaluate drugs in each group to learn which work for which patients.
Professor Anthony Gordon MBE, Professor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care at Imperial College London, discusses the potential of precision medicine in adult and paediatric intensive care. He explains how patients with similar clinical presentations may have different underlying biological responses, creating challenges for treatment and research. The interview explores the use of RNA and protein biomarkers, the prospect of bedside measurement and approaches to identifying which treatments may benefit particular groups of patients. Professor Gordon reflects on designing studies around these differences and the opportunities for collaboration across adult and paediatric critical care.
This interview took place at the PCCS Annual Scientific Meeting 2026 in London.
Read the transcript
Automatic transcript, lightly edited for readability. It may contain errors, so check it against the video before quoting.
So I've been talking about precision medicine and intensive care. One of the challenges we face both in adult and paediatric intensive care is that we treat very heterogeneous syndromes, whether they be sepsis or ARDS. And part of the reason we've struggled to find new therapies to treat these patients is there are some patients who benefit, some where there's no effect and some where maybe even the patients are being harmed.
So what we've been doing is trying to understand that heterogeneity better and can we personalise our therapies. We and others have found various biomarkers in the blood, looking at either RNA, proteins, multiple biomarkers, that actually define natural differences between patients. Importantly, in trials that have already compared other treatments, we've seen there is this differential response to the different treatments in these different groups.
Recently, we've been able to show that we can measure these biomarkers rapidly at the bedside and it identifies patients that have different outcomes. And what we're moving to now is precision medicine trials both in adult and paediatric intensive care. What we do is measure these biomarkers, split the patients into different groups, evaluate the drugs in these different groups, and hopefully this way we will learn which drugs work and for which patients, delivering a new paradigm for treatment in critical care.
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Cite this video
Professor Anthony Gordon MBE. “Precision medicine in intensive care.” The Paediatric Video Journal, 7 November 2026. https://paediatricvj.com/videos/precision-medicine-in-intensive-care-gordon/
This interview is educational content intended for healthcare professionals and is not medical advice. Views expressed are those of the speaker. © The Paediatric Video Journal. All rights reserved.