Imagine two patients diagnosed with the same type of lung cancer. Both receive standard chemotherapy, but while one tolerates the treatment relatively well and shows improvement, the other develops severe side effects and their condition worsens. Although they suffer from the same tumor type, their bodies react to therapy in entirely different ways. The reason for different reactions is not a medical error or a wrong choice of treatment but individual biological differences, distinct genetics, metabolism, and the way their bodies process and tolerate medications.

Because of these differences in how patients respond to therapy, and also because tumors with the same clinical name can be completely different at the molecular level and mutate over time, more attention is being directed toward personalized medicine. Its goal is to align therapy as closely as possible with the characteristics of tumor mutations and the individual traits of each patient, to increase the effectiveness of treatment and reduce the risk of severe side effects.

How is personalized medicine transforming treatment?

Personalized medicine involves tailoring treatment to the characteristics of the individual. Information obtained from diagnostic tests, biomarker analyses, genetic testing, and the patient’s medical history is used to create more precise and effective treatment plans. Even though the term may imply that therapy is created uniquely for a single patient, in practice personalized medicine often groups patients into subgroups based on biomarkers or other key biological characteristics.

Personalized medicine vs. precision medicine – a commonly overlooked distinction

In scientific literature, these two terms are often used interchangeably, but some authors distinguish between them. Precision medicine is sometimes defined as a subset of the broader concept of personalized healthcare. It relies on detailed analysis of a person’s genetic, biological, physiological, lifestyle, and social characteristics to identify the treatment most likely to be effective.

Understanding this distinction helps clarify the broader scope of personalized medicine compared to the more strictly molecular and genomic focus of precision medicine.

Is personalized medicine a new concept or an idea medicine has always known?

The idea of care tailored to the individual is not new. Even Hippocrates used to say it is more important to know who has the disease than which disease the person has. However, in recent decades this principle has taken on a new dimension thanks to advances in genetics, molecular biology, data analytics, and bioinformatics. The development of artificial intelligence has accelerated the application of personalized medicine, giving us tools capable of analyzing vast amounts of unstructured medical data and proposing solutions that would have been far more difficult to detect in the past. At the same time, innovative medical devices and technologies are enabling increasingly precise and minimally invasive treatments. Standardized diagnostic tests, such as tumor sequencing, germline mutation analysis, and pharmacogenomic testing, support this progress.

The key to these advancements is understanding the human genome – the complete set of genetic information in our cells. Each person’s genome is unique, which is why DNA analysis forms the basis of personalized medicine. The first attempt to decode the human genome, known as the draft sequence, was published more than 20 years ago, followed by the high-quality diploid genome sequence, which included genetic information inherited from both parents. In the early stages of modern genome sequencing, Craig Venter, an American scientist and founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, played a crucial role in developing methods and technologies that accelerated sequencing of the human genome and model organisms. You had the opportunity to hear his plenary lecture at the international conference AI_4_LIFE: Biotech Future Forum, held in October 2025.

In 2001, sequencing the human genome required nine months of work and cost more than 100 million dollars. Today, whole-genome sequencing can be completed in a few hours, and the commercial price for patients has approached the barrier of around 1,000 dollars, depending on the platform and additional analyses. This remarkable reduction in cost and time, often referred to as the $1000 genome, has made genomic sequencing far more accessible and realistic in medical practice.

Thus, personalized medicine has evolved from a conceptual idea into a practical reality that is reshaping how we diagnose, prevent, and treat diseases. Instead of the “one-size-fits-all” model, we are entering an era of targeted, precise, and more effective therapies.

Why does personalized medicine matter, and what potential does it carry?

Personalized medicine enables clinicians to choose therapy based on the unique characteristics of each patient, significantly increasing the likelihood of success while reducing the risk of adverse effects. Treatments tailored in this way are safer and more effective, and their outcomes are easier to predict.

By combining genomics, pharmacogenomics, bioinformatics, biomarker analysis, genetic predisposition evaluation, and clinical medicine, we are building a system centered around each patient’s unique characteristics. The system is one that can predict disease development and enable early detection. This is exactly what personalized medicine does. It changes the way we approach diagnostics and therapy, marking a shift from reacting to problems to anticipating them. Of course, personalization is not possible for every disease or every patient, which is why personalized medicine is currently most advanced in oncology, cardiology, pharmacogenomics, and the treatment of rare diseases.

In addition to being more effective, personalized medicine is also more humane. The patient is considered a unique individual, and all the factors that make them distinct are explored, helping them feel more comfortable and confident throughout treatment.

The medicine of tomorrow is human-centered medicine

Personalized medicine is not a vision of the future; it is already transforming how we approach diagnostics, treatment, and disease prevention. It creates significant opportunities for modernizing healthcare systems. Laboratories, clinics, and educational institutions can keep pace with global trends, grow, and continually push boundaries, while patients receive more precise and effective care. The foundations are already in place, and further progress will depend on investment, regulation, and shared vision.

If we continue at this pace, therapy tailored to the right patient at the right time will become the standard sooner than we expect.

Author: C4IR Serbia Team