Credible sources and modern genetic technology in personalized medicine

Personalized Medicine

The rapidly increasing demand of healthcare needs and preventions methods along with newer forms of diseases being discovered each day, extensive investments have been made in researching the field of medicine to revolutionize the future of medicine. Medical practitioners are looking up to a promising future proposed by the studies being carried out in the fields of genetics. This has open doors for a new and one of its kind form of medicine, namely 'Personalized Medicine.' As the name suggests, this type of medicine is patient specific and involves carrying out diagnosis and treatment plans that is customised to suit individual needs.

With the increase in demands of health care needs and with the discoveries of newer and more mysterious diseases, researches are being carried out at rapid rate to discover newer methods of health care needs. These health care services includes a wide variety of medication practices including newer nursing theories, genetically methodologies and other approaches to provide health care services.

In the recent past, the field of genetics has attracted a lot of attention from medical researchers. This has paved way for a new concept of healthcare services by the name of 'personalized medication' The concept of personalized medication refers to catering to customized of health care needs of a patient in context of his or her genetical history, environment, upbringing, and other social and biological factors. It involves studying the genetical structure and environmental factors of a patient and then devising a health care plan that is customised to suit the needs of one's physiology (Gilbert, 2011).

Recntly a lot of investment, both in terms of cash, kind and time has been invested in the field of genetics particularly to explore personalized medicine and to research cures for diseases that till this date are not considered as curable. An important breakthrough in this direction was made in the year 2003 when the U.S. Department of Energy in collaboration with the National Institute of Health started the Human Genome Project. The project focused on studying various DNA units in details that make up human genome, how they are distinct, the data contained in them, their chemical composition and their sequential structure. The aim was to understand how a certain type of genome or genetical unit can result in occurrence of a medicine and how can it be dealt with in the most efficient way to suit the specific genetical composition. Scientist believe that of succeeded, this study will revolutionize the health care and well being needs and how various diseases are dealt with. The research is however still underway and has not reached the standards where any and every patient with any kind of disease can be easily cured. This is because as newer diseases are emerging each day, scientists are having difficulties to understand the complicated interaction of various units of DNA and their formation in a complicated structure.

Scope of Personalized Medicine

While the field of Personalized Medicine has still not achieved any concrete milestones, it is considered to be the future of medicine and health care (Meadows, 2005). Despite of having limited breakthroughs, medicine practitioners and researchers have started to apply limited degree of personalized medicine in practice when it comes to certain diseases. Oncology is one major example where often diseases are dealt with the help of personalized medication.

This involves taking samples of various kinds of proteins and chemical compositions in a patients body along with organ sizes and breast sizes and then working out a viable treatment that specifically suits the needs of the patient's genetically composition. Moreover, genetical history is studied in detailed while doing so. However, since what differentiates personalized medicine from a purely genetic medicine is the presence of environmental factors, personalized factors is a much more complicated field. This is because it may not be necessary that a disease may stem from purely genetical orientations and it is very likely that environmental factors have a strong role to play in a patient acquiring a disease. This is of course difficult to study from genomes and DNA structures as environmental factors may be generic to person and may have different implications on different people.

That said, personalized medication promises various benefits if concrete breakthroughs are achieved in a field. Firstly, it paves way to make more efficient, accurate and well informed decision thus eliminating the probability of diagnostic errors. This will help the doctor to work out the most efficient treatment plan for the patient. Moreover, this kind of medicine practice is much more result oriented as desired outcomes would be easier to achieve (Woodcock, 2005). This is because of higher accuracy of diagnosis and efficient treatment plan devised for the patients. Another important aspect of personalized medicine is that works on the theory of 'prevention is better than cure.' The genetical and environmental data of a patient would help to predict a possible medical problem before hand and prevent it from occurring altogether by devising relevant therapies that is customised for the patient's needs.