The Personalized Medicine Revolution ― How Diagnosing and Treating Disease Are About to Change Forever

Every one of us is unique. With recent advances in technology, we now know that that statement is more true that ever: we are each individuals, right down to a molecular level ? a one-of-a-kind combination of genes, proteins, and metabolism. So why does healthcare still take a one-size-fits-all approach? The same methods are used on everyone to diagnose illness, and the same drugs are used to treat it ? despite the fact that those methods and treatments are not effective for everyone and are even harmful for some. Shouldn’t our medicine be tailored to our differences? The Personalized Medicine Revolution explores recent advances in genomics, the study of the human genome ? as well as its cousins proteomics, metabolomics, microbiomics, and the like ? and explains how technology is even now changing the way medicine is delivered. Along the way, it takes the reader through the five critical healthcare areas that will be transformed most radically by personalized medicine ? prediction, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring ? and examines the practical and ethical issues involved. Finally, it details how readers can use personalized medicine to take charge of their own health and build a stronger and safer medical system.

Pieter Cullis, PhD, is director of the Life Sciences Institute at the University of British Columbia, chairman of the B.C. Personalized Medicine Initiative, and a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UBC. He has a PhD in physics from UBC and did a post-doc at Oxford University in biochemistry. He is also a recipient of the Prix Galien, Canada’s top award for developing new drugs to treat disease. Iva Cheung holds an MSc from the University of British Columbia and works as a freelance editor. Both live in Vancouver.