Human genomics in cardiovascular medicine: implications and perspectives

For the past 10 years in the post-genomic era, emerging technologies in human genomic research have provided us with a plethora of genetic variations implicated in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases. Discovering the key target genes in genomic research has contributed to biomedical research on the mechanical pathways of the diseases. In an era with dramatic development of brand new strategies, the conventional evaluation of family aggregation, environmental exposure and clinical phenotype remains of great importance to promote genomic research. Notwithstanding the promising progress in genomic research, we still have an enormous number of issues to overcome before approaching the ultimate goal of human genomics: the successful application of genomic data to personalized medicine.