ABSTRACT
Personalized medicine is a novel paradigm in healthcare, using genomic data to tailor prognostic assessments, treatment plans, and diagnostics for every individual. The recent developments in genomic technologies, such as transcriptomics and next-generation sequencing, have changed our understanding of the genetic origins of diseases and allowed for precision techniques that maximize the outcome of any treatment approach. Determining illness susceptibility and predicting the outcomes of treatments have heavily depended on genomic variations like single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and gene expression profiles. In fact, this chapter describes the potential that genomic data possess in transforming personal medicine; there is, specifically, great use of genetic information in determining toxicity and effectiveness, especially as provided by the area of pharmacogenomics. Of course, improvements in biomarkers such as EGFR for lung cancer or HER2 in breast cancer highlight one of the exciting ways through which precision medicine can transform the study of cancer, among others. It has also combined multi-omics that include proteomics, metabolomics, and genomics, thus offering a deep insight into the disease mechanisms and opportunities for novel therapies. The chapter addresses the ethical, legal, and social (ELSI) implications of genomic data use, including patient autonomy, data privacy, and fair access to healthcare. Along with future initiatives that stress the promise of artificial intelligence and CRISPR-based medicines to enhance precision medicine, challenges such as high costs, computational complexity, and regulatory impediments are considered. By the end of this chapter, readers will be able to fully understand how genetic data are altering modern medicine, what needs to be surmounted to start taking advantage of it, and the exciting prospects that now lie in wait for giving individualized healthcare to the world.
