Alexander Gelfand looks at the future of medicine:
…the potential usefulness of pharmocogenetics extends beyond safety. Most drugs on the market are, by some accounts, only effective for 50 percent of those who take them. Researchers envision a time when you’ll be able to walk into your doctor’s office and have him or her conduct a simple test to determine whether this or that drug will work best for you, given the presence (or absence) of specific genetic variations — the age of designer drugs. Combine that with genetic testing that reveals predispositions toward particular diseases, and you have a future in which medical science could circumvent potential problems by intervening even before symptoms appear. But we’re not there yet.
The Dish 