Scientific Basics of Personalized Medicine: Realities and Opportunities

Modern trends in the development of health care suggest its focus on the interests of the patient and its holistic nature, as well as deep penetration into all parts of health care information technology. The driving force behind the ongoing changes, of course, are scientific achievements, the importance of which in the development of new medical technologies and the creation of innovative diagnostic devices, as well as medicines, has grown significantly in recent years. These processes provide conditions for the introduction into clinical practice of a new model of medical care—personalized medicine, based on the choice of methods of diagnosis and treatment with account for the individual characteristics of the course of the disease, as well as the patient’s lifestyle. Personalized medicine technologies, which involve the creation of an appropriate, often expensive, infrastructure of omics technologies, should ultimately lead to an increase in the efficiency, quality, and, most importantly, safety of medical care. In the Russian Federation, this area is actively developing in four world-class research centers, including the Almazov National Medical Research Center. The current state and prospects of research in the field of personalized medicine are discussed in this article, prepared by the author on the basis of his scientific report at a meeting of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences.