Personalized Medicine

Personalized medicine, also known as precision medicine, is a revolutionary approach to healthcare that tailors medical treatments to the individual characteristics of each patient. Through advances in genomics, biotechnology, and data analytics, personalized medicine aims to provide more effective and targeted treatments, reduce side effects, and improve overall well-being for patients.

Personalized Medicine is an emerging practice of medicine that looks at a patient's genetic profile as a guide to their prevention and care. To do this, the patients’ DNA must be sequenced and evaluated, in order to figure the next best steps suited for them.

How does it work?

• Genome sequencing for patients
  • Find genetic variations (or mutations) that could affect the person’s risk of disease or drug/medicine responses
• Biomarkers
  • Act as a tangible confirmation of a disease or condition
    • (some proteins, specific genes)
• Pharmacogenomics
  • Finds out how exactly a specific patient’s body will react to a drug based on gene variations, etc
    • A gene variation could cause a different protein to form, one that metabolizes the drug differently 

Advantages

• Better treatment options for the ill
  • Tailored to their own needs, which ensures a smooth recovery designed specially for the
  • Limited side effects, since we know what the impact of the drug/ medicine will be on that patient 
• Preventive care instead of preemptive care
  • Genetic testing and biosensors allows us to flag any genes that could give the patient a higher risk of any diseases, allowing us to take precautionary steps beforehand
• No wasted money
  • Personalized medicine ensures that the medicine is tailored to your needs, and addresses your own problems
    • This eliminates any other treatment options one would’ve tried, that may not have worked, avoiding unnecessary treatments and saving money
• Informed Decisions for Patients
  • This simple method of identifying one’s genes to calculate risk factors and suitable medicines allows the patient to make educated decisions for their own healthcare

Disadvantages 

• High implementation costs
  • The high cost of genome sequencing, and targeted therapies can be expensive for certain areas that try to accommodate everyone, therefore limiting accessibility
• Ethical Issues
  • The storing and managing of the sequenced DNA is valuable information, if it isn’t done right, it could leave to conflicts of privacy
• Implementation
  • A great deal of faculties and trained professionals are needed to implement  a part of personalized medicine into the standard healthcare system
• Exclusions In Health Gap
  • Many low-income areas have limited access to facilities like these, which widen the health inequalities even more 

Personalized Medicine in the Future

Through newly adapted technology and research, personalized medicine is poised for significant growth

• With proper funding, whole-genome sequencing could be integrated into the modern healthcare system, allowing everyone to see the complete picture of risks and precautions
• AI in the future could play a bigger part in analyzing data sets, identifying biomarkers, etc
• Gene editing therapies like CRISPR could be used in addition to personalized medicine to cure inherited genetic diseases