The Influence of ‘Omics’ in Shaping Precision Medicine

Precision medicine is quickly emerging as an exciting new medical model in which patient information is extracted from their lifestyle, environmental, and genetic data. These data will be used to augment and refine traditional medical data to provide a higher level of specificity for disease prevention and patient care. Of the three pillars supporting precision medicine, this paper takes a deeper look at the genetic and genomic pillar; in particular, investigating the role the field of ‘omics’ has played in helping to develop precision medicine. The term omics is used to describe the collective research efforts of molecular biology for various subdomains (e.g., genomics, proteomics, metabolomics). While this paper is not exhaustive in scope, cases where omics has impacted both clinical practice and public health are highlighted, as well as a discussion of where omics has yet to bridge the gap between these two areas of medicine. The aim of this manuscript is to provide the reader with insight on the particular challenges and benefits of pursuing precision medicine.