Medicine is the ultimate personalised technology

Personalised Medicine

In recent years we have seen the emergence of “personalised medicine.” This development can be seen as the logical product of reductionism in medical science in which disease is increasingly understood in molecular terms. Personalised medicine has flourished as a consequence of the application of neoliberal principles to health care, whereby a commercial and social need for personalised medicin...

The future of technologies for personalised medicine.

Personalised medicine promises prediction, prevention and treatment of illness that is targeted to individuals’ needs. New technologies for detailed biological profiling of individuals at the molecular level have been crucial in initiating the move to personalised medicine; further novel technologies will be necessary if the vision is to become a reality. We will need to develop new technologie...

The path to personalised medicine in COPD.

Our understanding of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has changed dramatically over the past two decades. We have moved from an airflow limitation-centric view to the realisation that COPD is a complex and heterogeneous disease, which leads inevitably to the need for personalising the assessment and treatment of patients with COPD. This review provides a brief perspective of the ext...

The genetics of gout: towards personalised medicine?

Over the last decade, there have been major advances in the understanding of the genetic basis of hyperuricaemia and gout as well as of the pharmacogenetics of urate-lowering therapy. Key findings include the reporting of 28 urate-associated loci, the discovery that ABCG2 plays a central role on extra-renal uric acid excretion, the identification of genes associated with development of gout in ...

Personalised medicine targeting the gut microbiota?