Insights On Personalized Medicine

Personalized medicine is what physicians can do for an individual patient in treating

certain diseases, most of which are caused by many gene interactions. The concept of customizing medicine seeks to address medical and physical conditions on a higher and deeper level: it is based on the genetic makeup of each individual after accomplishing a genetic mapping.

The human genome is the blueprint of each individual. It influences how each person looks, his genetic predispositions for certain medical conditions, how competent his body can combat disease or metabolize food, and which drug therapies his body responds to or does not. The genome composes of the DNA including the genes. The DNA consists of four chemicals abbreviated as A, T, C and G, and which are repeated many times in different sequences. Such chemical sequence indicates the type of organism that develops, and other critical functions of life. There are 3 billion pairs of chemicals found in the human genome.

The human genes are conceived to make up only 2 percent of the human genome. The rest of them are labeled as 'non-coding' regions, which regulate the function of genes and contribute to the structural integrity of the chromosomes.

Personalized medicine is a rapidly advancing field of healthcare supported by an individual's distinct clinical, genetic, genomic and environmental information. These factors are unique of every individual, hence, the nature of diseases including their onset, course and how they respond to drug therapies are also different in every individual.

Therefore, personalized medicine is providing treatment as individualized as the disease. It includes, among others, determining genetic, clinical and genomic information which enables physicians to predict accurately an individual's vulnerability to contract a disease, the course of such disease and its corresponding response to a particular treatment.

Before the personalized medicine becomes a reality, their findings must first be translated into exact diagnostic tests and targeted therapies. In some areas, this has already began; patients were tested genetically to ascertain their likelihood of contracting a serious adverse reaction to different cancer drugs.

The sequencing of Human Genome which was completed in 2003 produced a critical insight into the biological activities behind many medical conditions. Both the scientists and physicians are working in advance on personalized medicine in a rather faster pace. Although it is yet to become an established component of clinical practice, there are a number of top-tier medical institutions that are using the programs of personalized medicine. Also, many are already initiating research and clinical studies in genomic medicine.

For instance, among the current clinical trials are producing genomic-guided care to patients inflicted with different types of cancer. There is also genomic testing for patients with heart failure, eye diseases like the macular degeneration, and diabetes.

Personalized medicine and genomics aims to target more complex diseases which are thought for many years to be influenced primarily by environmental factors. With this new field of scientific study, however, scientists and medical professionals understand clearly that such diseases have strong multi-gene components, and in many cases, might be caused by errors between genes in the DNA.

by: Charles Godbout

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