In the last few years, “personalized medicine"-- using genetic or other molecular biology-based diagnostic tests to customize treatment for a particular patient -- has emerged as a powerful new tool for health care. Therapy guided by genetic testing has proven highly successful in treating some types of leukemia and breast and lung cancer. Similar “personalized” therapies are on the horizon for other types of cancer, as well as diabetes, heart disease and other deadly disorders. Now, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) researchers and their colleagues elsewhere have taken the first steps toward bringing the methods of personalized medicine to asthma.
