When Medicine Gets Personal

Authored by: Sawandi DeSilva

Art by: Chloe Lee

Imagine picking up a prescription you know could make you feel better, only to pause after turning the bottle around and reading the label. For many, this is a harsh reality, as the sight of certain ingredients resulting in side effects have a massive impact on their health. Genetics play a substantial role in drug efficacy and toxicity varying from individual to individual, making it more dangerous for some to digest medicine. With the emergence of pharmacogenetics, healthcare companies are working on moving away from the “one size fits all” approach and attempting to tailor new innovative medicines focused on patients who would benefit from eliminating the threat of adverse effects. 

Pharmacogenomics is a specialized area of study that is skilled in identifying genetic characteristics of an individual, and taking note of how they respond to various medications. [1] Whether you may differ through DNA makeup, history of illness, or being part of a particular ethnic group, there are ways to overcome limitations that one may face. Personalized medicine is a precision drug that works towards treating patients through the use of biomarkers. [2] Now, more than ever is the time to monopolize on having this as an option with the multitude of advancements in imaging genomic technology. 

The Personal Genome Project has been an ongoing study conducted by George M. Church since 2005, working on making personal genomes accessible to the general public. Through this, Church hopes to uncover information on genetic variants that influence drug metabolism and disease susceptibility by analyzing various lineages and ancestors. [3] Church’s research on genetic based variation has already been found in risk factors such as Parkinson’s Disease and Prostate Cancer. [4] Optimizing personalized medicine is growing in relevance as it has the ability to target cancer therapies such as drugs like Imatinib, which are only prescribed to patients whose tumors originate from specific mutations. Much like precision immunotherapy, which is tailored to a patient’s unique antigens, this treatment is ineffective for those without the specific molecular drivers that it targets. [5]

Comparably, Primaquine (PQ) is a drug that has been used to facilitate malaria in parts of the world where it is endemic. In these areas, military doctors noticed soldiers that were being treated for malaria with PQ felt anemic and lethargic. What makes this case so fascinating is that this eventually became a disease called Acute Haemolytic Anaemia (AHA) which came to individuals who carried the G6PD gene. Once discovered, doctors started to realize the importance in genotyping patients for their individuality before administering a mass drug. [6]

Although personalized medicine sounds promising, it poses privacy breach concerns in an era of large scale data collection. Since much of this process requires specifics on clinical and molecular data/ history, it becomes difficult to protect HIPAA and keep anonymity when designing potential solutions to groups of individuals who mandate similar treatments. One violation could lead to many exposures of sensitive health information enduring lifelong consequences. Nonetheless, the future of personalized medicine is instituting safer and patient centered care day by day. As it becomes increasingly attainable, this procedure works towards delivering the right treatment at the right time for each and every individual.  

References: 

1. Pharmacogenomics. (n.d.). Cleveland Clinic. Retrieved March 20, 2026, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/pharmacogenomics 

2. Goetz, L. H., & Schork, N. J. (2018). Personalized medicine: Motivation, challenges and progress. Fertility and Sterility, 109(6), 952–963. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2018.05.006 

3. Ghai, R., Mittal, A., Pandey, D., Alam, M. S., Kaushik, S., & Ishtiyaq, P. (2024). Role of personalized medicine in clinical practice: An overview of current and future perspectives. Biomedical and Pharmacology Journal, 17(4), 2111–2133. https://biomedpharmajournal.org/vol17no4/role-of-personalized-medicine-in-clinical-practice-an-overview-of-current-and-future-perspectives/ 

4. Shaman, J. A. (2024). The future of pharmacogenomics: Integrating epigenetics, nutrigenomics, and beyond. Journal of Personalized Medicine, 14(12), 1121. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm14121121 

5. Goutelle, S., Guidi, M., Gotta, V., Csajka, C., Buclin, T., & Widmer, N. (2023). From personalized to precision medicine in oncology: A model-based dosing approach to optimize achievement of imatinib target exposure. Pharmaceutics, 15(4), 1081. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics15041081 

6. Visvikis-Siest, S., Theodoridou, D., Kontoe, M.-S., Kumar, S., & Marschler, M. (2020). Milestones in personalized medicine: From the ancient time to nowadays—the provocation of covid-19. Frontiers in Genetics, 11, 569175. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2020.569175