>[!abstract] >Biomedicine is the branch of medical science that applies principles of biology, physiology, and molecular research to understand, diagnose, and treat disease. It emphasizes a reductionist approach, focusing on biological mechanisms such as genetics, biochemistry, and cellular processes as the basis of health and pathology. Biomedicine underpins modern clinical practice, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology, providing powerful tools for intervention and cure. However, it is sometimes critiqued for neglecting psychological, social, and environmental factors that shape health, leading to calls for more holistic or integrative medical models. >[!quote] >Despite the simple name, biomedicine is not simply the area of overlap between biology and medicine. It is a framework, a set of philosophical commitments, a global institution woven into Western culture and its power dynamics, and more. Biomedicine is the umbrella theoretical framework for most health science and health technology work done in academic and government settings. Western medical practices and the surrounding healthcare infrastructure are principally biomedical. Health-related corporations are predominantly biomedical in orientation (with the exception of a few homeopathic producers and other scattered outliers). International medical aid mainly offers biomedical resources. Biomedicine, in other words, is the name for how most powerful global institutions envision the relations between biological sciences and medicine (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2025). >[!related] >- **North** (upstream): — >- **West** (similar): [[Clinical medicine]] (application of biomedical research directly to patient care) >- **East** (different): [[Holistic / alternative medicine]] (systems that emphasize whole-person, spiritual, or traditional approaches outside biomedicine’s reductionist framework) >- **South** (downstream): [[Translational research]] (moving biomedical discoveries from "bench to bedside" in diagnostics, therapies, and interventions)