Personalized medicine, population genetics and privacy : an empirical study of international gene banks

Thesis (S.M.)--Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology; and, (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2005.Includes bibliographical references.The promise of personalized medicine lies in its potential to fundamentally change healthcare. In the past, pharmaceuticals were prescribed on a "one size fits all" basis-patients with certain disease phenotypes were given what were thought to be appropriate drugs. There is growing evidence however that the effectiveness of these drugs may differ by individual and by sub-group; presumably due to fundamental genetic differences in disease and metabolic pathways. Drugs like Herceptin, Gleevec and Iressa are part of an emerging trend in the biopharmaceutical arena of drugs that are accompanied by genetic diagnostic tests and prescribed only for patients with genotypes in which the agents are most effective.by Chad D. Holland.S.M.M.O.T.S.M