Personalized Medicine in the Era of Genomics

Personalized medicine is a model that aims at customizing healthcare and tailoring medicine according to an individual`s genetic makeup. It classifies individuals that differ in their susceptibility to a particular disease or response to a particular treatment into subpopulations based on individual's unique genetic and clinical information along with environmental factors. The completion of Human Genome Project and the advent of high-throughput genome analysis tools has helped in building and strengthening this model. There lies a huge potential in the implementation of personalized medicine to significantly improve the clinical outcomes; however, its implementation into clinical practice remains slow and is a matter of concern. This chapter aims at acquainting readers with the underlying concepts and components of personalized medicine supplemented with some disease-based case studies, discussing challenges and recent advancements in the implementation of the model of personalized medicine.