Personalized Medicine and Biomarkers (Biomedical Informatics) - Research Paper Example

Biomedical informatics and health informatics is an interdisciplinary field which integrates different fields such as computer science, biology, medicine and health care. It fosters an effective analysis and management of data for its application in health care. Bernstam et al , [1] defines biomedical informatics as a science of information where data is presented together with meaning in finding solutions to biomedical related problems. This makes the field distinct from related fields such as biomedicine, bioinformatics and computer science.

Computers provide the interface between the data which they process and humans interpret the meaning of the data, a task the computers are incapable of carrying out appropriately. This field has gained relevance because of the rise in use of electronic health records and the plethora of data emanating from genomics research, [2]. Because of the growth of the data available to professionals in the healthcare, there has been a change in the pattern of medical decision making towards the requirement of informatics and information technology platform to assist medics in their decision making.

Personalized medicine is a form of medicine that makes use of personal information derived from person’s genes, proteins and environment to assist in disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment, [3]. A biomarker is a variable which can be a gene, protein, or chemical which is altered in disease condition. Biomarkers are classified as prognostic, predictive or therapeutic biomarkers. Prognostic biomarkers try to assess the likely cause of a disease whereas predictive ones assess the probability of whether a patient will benefit from a particular therapy.

In the recent times, personalized medicine has been ameliorated by a more improved molecular understanding of disease thereby introducing effective