Personalized medicine: hope or hype?

Medicine has always been personalized. For years, physicians have incorporated environmental, behavioural, and genetic factors that affect disease and drug response into patient management decisions. However, until recently, the 'genetic' data took the form of family history and self-reported race/ethnicity. As genome sequencing declines in cost, the availability of specific genomic information will no longer be limiting. Rather, our ability to parse these data and our decision whether to use it will become primary. As our understanding of genetic association with drug responses and diseases continues to improve, clinically useful genetic tests may emerge to improve upon our previous methods of assessing genetic risks. Indeed, genetic tests for monogenic disorders have already proven useful. Such changes may usher in a new era of personalized medicine. In this review, we will discuss the utility and limitations of personal genomic data in three domains: pharmacogenomics, assessment of genetic predispositions for common diseases, and identification of rare disease-causing genetic variants.