The role of genomics in medicine——past, present and future

The fundamental idea that responses to environmental factors or treatments is to be found in our individual differences, the underlying concept of “genomic medicine”, is rooted in antiquity and based on millennia of simple observation. Simply put, the objective of genomic medicine is to determine the genetic bases of those differences in response to environmental agents, including medications, and differences that may predispose to the development of common and potentially personally devastating and societally expensive disorders, and to use them in populations to thwart adverse response, increase the frequency of beneficial response, and intervene to prevent or delay onset of disease.