Precision medicine is defined as an approach to personalized diagnosis and treatment, based on the omics information of patients. Human cancer is a complex and intrinsically heterogeneous disease in which patients may exhibit similar symptoms, and appear to have the same pathological disease, for entirely different genetic reasons. Such heterogeneity results in dramatic variations in response to currently available anti-cancer drugs. Therefore, oncology is one of the best fields for the practice of precision medicine. The availability of omics-based big data, along with rapid development of biotechnology, paves a way for precision medicine. This article describes the concept, foundation and significance of precision medicine, and reviews the recent progresses in methodology development and their clinical application. Then, various current available biotechniques in precision medicine are evaluated and classified into indirect (biomarker-based detection and prediction) and direct (patient-derived cells and tissues for direct anti-cancer drug screening) categories. Finally, perspectives of precision medicine as well as its facing challenge are briefly discussed.

precision medicine  /  personalized medicine  /  omics  /  biomarker detection  /  patient-derived cells and tissue