Forecasting limits in personalised medicine Authors Manuel Esteller Institut Català d’Oncologia Abstract Summary. Personalised medicine means finding the right treatment for the right patient at the right time. Although this is a very global, very simple idea, it is nonetheless very difficult to achieve. To do so requires a concerted effort from professionals in all fields: scientists, politicians, lawyers, economists, etc., as well as synergies between researchers, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and between the public and private sectors. In personalised cancer medicine, a tumour is analysed accordingto its genomics, genetics, epigenetics, epigenomics, cellular features, and biochemistry, and searches for its weakest link in order to improve the likelihood that the patient will respond to the therapy chosen accordingly. The numerous advantages of this approach make it crucial to support the research that will lead to the discovery of new biomarkers , capable of predicting a patient’s sensitivity to drugs, for their use in personalised medicine.Keywords: personalised medicine ∙ epigenetics ∙ epigenomics ∙ cancer ∙ DNA methylation ∙ biomarkers ∙ MGMT ∙ BRCA1 Downloads PDF Issue Vol. 8 No. 2 (2012) Section Keynote Lectures License This work is subject, unless the contrary is indicated in the text, the photographs or in other illustrations, to an Attribution —Non-Commercial— No Derivative Works 3.0 Creative Commons License, the full text of which can be consulted at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. You are free to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work provided that the author is credited and reuse of the material is restricted to non-commercial purposes only and that no derivative works are created from the original material.
