Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 3
Personalized Medicine
Jessica D. Tenenbaum
By the End of This Chapter, Readers Should Be Able to
Understand the meaning of the term “personalized medicine”;
Become familiar with the underlying biology and novel technologies that have
enabled and enhanced the realization of personalized medicine;
Learn about “hot topics” and future directions in the area of personalized medi-
cine; and
Understand the implications of personalized medicine from the viewpoint of
patients and their communities, healthcare providers, and policy makers.
3.1
Introduction
Personalized medicine is a key concept in discussions regarding the transformation
of health care. At the highest level, personalized medicine means health care, and
disease prevention, that is targeted to the individual at the appropriate time. By that
defi nition, though, any senior physician will tell you she has been performing per-
sonalized medicine for decades. So what has changed?
Personalized medicine in the post-genome era represents a confl uence of factors
in which informatics plays a key role, enabling the transformation of increasingly
voluminous amounts of data into information, and subsequently translating this
information into actionable knowledge both in research and at the point of care.
First, the sequencing of the human genome and the technologies that project has
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