From Genetic Tests to Tailored Care: Decoding a field with big potential -- and even bigger implications

Imagine a doctor using your genetic profile to decide which medicine to prescribe or to determine your risk for developing a life-threatening health problem. It's not a medical fantasy -- genetic tests already are used to gauge how patients will respond to certain drugs or to look for mutations in specific genes that can increase the risk for developing aggressive types of cancer.

But while the potential of so-called personalized medicine seems immense, some big questions are years away from being fully answered. Right now, researchers are still trying to understand key issues related to this next frontier of modern medicine, including how genetic profiling can help patients better understand their health risks, how medical professionals will be able to interpret results and what, if any, ethical implications arise in having this much genetic information.

"Personalized medicine is still in its infancy," said Dr. Ayyappan Rajasekaran, director of the Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research, which is studying biomarkers that can help identify more aggressive forms of the disease in kids. "We have a chance to do fantastic work."

At...