An Overview of Personalized Medicine Development Through Recent Advances in Genome-Wide Association Studies

Genome-wide association studies, a term often in use following completion of The Human Genome Project, refers to the analysis and comprehensive understanding of human genetic landscape for practical purposes. An example of such application would be the development of personalized medicine approach and subsequent abandonment of the “one-size-fits all” model. In personalized medicine, a patient’s therapy is tailored according to their indication, clinical parameters, genotype and environmental effects in order to enable the best possible therapeutic outcome with as few adverse side effects, as possible. This review is about a series of exciting events that were important for the development of personalized medicine and to introduce the most important genome-wide association studies analysis approaches that made this possible, such as next-generation sequencing platforms and biomarker identification. In addition, we are presenting several examples of how personalized medicine improved our understanding of adverse drug reactions and ways to optimize patient’s therapy to their best interest.