Public Health Genomics and Personalized Healthcare: a pipeline from cell to society

摘要

Truly personalized healthcare facilitating the management of personal health drives a fundamental change not just in what is known but also in how we think of ourselves and the way we are living, thus redefining our society (1). We have to prepare now - just in time! - for all the various organizational changes ahead of us. The political will is there. However, the real paradigm shift depends on the willingness to restructure our current policies, to support knowledge transfer to maximize benefit to public health, and - most important -to change our minds. So far, all stakeholders including policy-makers and the private sector are struggling to translate the emerging knowledge into public health. Public Health Genomics (PHG) is the area of public health ensuring that scientific advances in genomics ("from cell...") triggered by innovative technologies are timely, effectively and responsibly translated into health policies and practice for the benefit of population health ("...to society").