Having been involved in the field of personalized medicine for over two decades, I have rarely paused to consider what people actually mean when they use the term. For a long time, through the early 2000s, the 2010s, and even more recently, it was generally accepted that “personalized medicine” referred primarily to the identification of certain genetic alterations associated with clinical conditions. For reasons that were never fully clear to me, this narrow understanding became the dominant definition.

In 2006, during my fellowship at Roswell Park Cancer Center, they established a Center for Personalized Medicine. In essence, it was a genetics-focused facility that conducted a significant volume of oncological genetic testing. While the range of capabilities was more limited then compared to today, the core approach - linking genetic data to clinical insights, remained constant. Even now, in many scientific and clinical circles, the presence of genetic research is considered almost a prerequisite for labeling something as “personalized medicine”.

However, the term has also evolved in surprising ways. Outside the research context, it can take on much simpler or even superficial meanings. For example, in some healthcare settings, personalized medicine may be interpreted as providing individual services such as airport pickup for a patient, direct access to a physician without waiting, or other concierge-like experiences. In other cases, the term is applied to what is essentially routine medical care: a doctor managing a patient based on their unique clinical picture, without involving advanced diagnostics or technology.

At Smartomica, personalized medicine is not merely about genetics or convenience. It is about the integration of multiple dimensions of modern medicine. Only in recent years has personalized medicine begun to take on a truly practical meaning, thanks to the emergence of advanced diagnostic technologies, most notably the “omics” sciences such as genomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics. These molecular-level approaches allow us to describe disease processes with a degree of precision that was previously unattainable. When combined with artificial intelligence and other advanced tools, they open new frontiers in clinical understanding.

Yet, what remains largely undeveloped is the actual operational space of personalized medicine: the ability for physicians to use this wealth of scientific knowledge in daily clinical practice. While researchers continue to produce validated biomarkers, diagnostic tests, and data-driven insights, integrating these into patient care in a routine, scalable, and practical way is still extremely difficult.

At Smartomica, we see our role as that of an integrator. We work to connect doctors, researchers, developers, laboratories, and technology providers. We bring structure and meaning to this complex ecosystem. By leveraging our proprietary AI, we match standardized and interpretable patient data with cutting-edge diagnostic capabilities. Our objective is to translate these capabilities into evidence-based, clinically relevant insights, delivered in a format that is familiar and actionable for physicians. This allows them to make informed decisions with confidence, using tools that are not only scientifically sound but also operationally feasible.

While personalized medicine certainly carries implications for healthcare efficiency and economics, our primary focus remains its clinical value: helping physicians use the best available science to deliver the most precise and effective care to each individual patient.