Forecasting limits in personalised medicine

Resumen

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 according
to 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