By Kiran Jayasinghe
Before releasing a drug to the world, scientists test a group of people. If the drug or medicine works on more than fifty percent of the people, they usually release it to the rest of the world.
But why doesn’t it work on everyone?
Scientists think that certain drugs work only on some people because they have similar genomes (a genome is a complete set of DNA – your genes), while others don’t. They think that if they looked at a person’s genome and prescribed medications according to the person’s genes, the medicine would work better. This method of practicing medicine is called “personalized medicine”.
Personalized medicine is a treatment that is, based on your genome, made to work better for you. Scientists can read a person’s genome almost overnight, and once they do, they can learn what type of genes they have, and what type of medicine will work better for them.
For instance, let’s say somebody has cancer. Some cancer drugs don’t work on all patients. In those situations, the doctor can sequence the patient’s genome, and figure out exactly what type of cancer the patient has and what exact type of medicine will work with the cancer.
Scientists think that personalized medicine will significantly change the way doctors treat patients in the next few years.