Every disruption begins with an n of 1

From The Patient of the Future by Jon Cohen
A couple of striking quotes.

. . . he has an extraordinary ability to fish signal from noise in complex data sets.

[snip]

When I first meet Smarr and he gives me a tour of his institute, commonly known as Calit2, I tell him that I find it difficult to separate promise from hype, noting that his endeavor has all the pitfalls of any "n = 1" experiment—a test in which only one person is the subject. "Every disruption begins with an n of 1," he replies.