Everything You Need to Know About Precision Medicine
18th April 2016
Precision medicine, an emerging field in which treatments are tailored to an individual’s genes, environment and lifestyle, is on the cutting edge of cancer treatment. President Obama launched his Precision Medicine Initiative earlier this year; several research institutions have undertaken large-scale clinical trials in which patients with different diseases can enroll, one of which was conducted by the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with results published last week. And while some patients like Swain have benefitted from what researchers have figured out so far, precision medicine isn’t nearly as widespread—or precise—as proponents want it to be. To bring this field to its full potential, researchers will need to figure out how to best tailor treatments to suit every patient’s biological differences. And the more they learn, the more difficult that seems.