The re-emerging concept of personalized healthcare

The ethical aspects of exposome research: a systematic review

In recent years, exposome research has been put forward as the next frontier for the study of human health and disease. Exposome research entails the analysis of the totality of environmental exposures and their corresponding biological responses within the human body. Increasingly, this is operationalized by big-data approaches to map the effects of internal as well as external exposures using smart sensors and multiomics technologies. However, the ethical implications of exposome research are still only rarely discussed in the literature. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of the academic literature regarding both the exposome and underlying research fields and approaches, to map the ethical aspects that are relevant to exposome research. We identify five ethical themes that are prominent in ethics discussions: the goals of exposome research, its standards, its tools, how it relates to study participants, and the consequences of its products. Furthermore, we provide a number of general principles for how future ethics research can best make use of our comprehensive overview of the ethical aspects of exposome research. Lastly, we highlight three aspects of exposome research that are most in need of ethical reflection: the actionability of its findings, the epidemiological or clinical norms applicable to exposome research, and the meaning and action-implications of bias.

After the revolution? Ethical and social challenges in 'personalized genomic medicine'

Personalized genomic medicine (PGM) is a goal that currently unites a wide array of biomedical initiatives, and is promoted as a 'new paradigm for healthcare' by its champions. Its promissory virtues include individualized diagnosis and risk prediction, more effective prevention and health promotion, and patient empowerment. Beyond overcoming scientific and technological hurdles to realizing PGM, proponents may interpret and rank these promises differently, which carries ethical and social implications for the realization of PGM as an approach to healthcare. We examine competing visions of PGM's virtues and the directions in which they could take the field, in order to anticipate policy choices that may lie ahead for researchers, healthcare providers and the public.

Genomics and personalized medicine

The role of genomics in personalized medicine continues to undergo profound changes, in step with dramatic technological advances. Ability to sequence the entire human genome with relative ease raises expectations that we can use an individual's complete genomic blueprint to understand disease risk and predicting therapy outcomes, thereby, optimizing drug therapy. Yet, doubts persist as to what extent genetic/genomic factors influence disease and treatment outcomes or whether robust predictive biomarker tests can be developed. Encompassing more than just DNA sequences, the definition of genomics now often is taken to include transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and epigenomics, with integration of genomic and environmental factors, in an area referred to systems biology. While we can learn much about a cell's innermost workings, summation of these diverse areas is far from enabling the prediction of therapeutic outcomes. Typically, only a handful of specific biomarkers, genetic or otherwise, are 'actionable', i.e., they can be used to guide therapy. I will focus on pharmacogenetic biomarkers, highlighting current successes but also the main challenges that remain in optimizing individualized therapy.

U-Health: an example of a high-quality individualized healthcare service

National Taiwan University Hospital (Taipei, Taiwan), which is one of the largest hospitals in Taiwan, is undergoing healthcare service reforms: it is combining the home healthcare service network and sensors network into a new service known as the Ubiquitous Healthcare (U-Health) service system in order to continually provide a personalized healthcare service to patients who live in remote areas. The U-Health service system is comprised of six service components that are introduced in an integrated manner: tele-education, telediagnosis, telemonitoring, teleconsultation, teletherapy and lifetime health. The target patient segments are postdischarge patients, patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases, patients suffering from chronic diseases and patients in hospice care. Since its launch in October 2009, the U-Health service system has effectively reduced the rehospitalization rate from 12% in October 2009 to 6% in May 2010 and the rate of visiting the emergency room from 21% in October 2009 to 9% in May 2010, during the 14-day postdischarge follow-up period.