Moving toward whole-genome analysis: a technology perspective.

PURPOSE: New, highly efficient technologies used in genomic analysis are described, and their implications for health care are discussed. SUMMARY: The availability of the human genome sequence, in confluence with the ability to affordably package it for analysis, is opening new frontiers in biomedical research. On the horizon, personalized medicine--driven by molecular characterization of disease, genetic analysis of the patient, and information technologies designed to enable health care professionals to leverage these tools--promises to fundamentally transform health care. New genetics technologies, such as high-density microarrays, will fuel this research by providing researchers with the ability to comprehensively access the human genome in all its complexity. Some of the most promising areas for application of genetic information are those where society's current needs are greatest: complex, common disorders, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease; drug interactions; inherited genetic disorders that afflict children; and late-onset conditions for which no cure currently exists. The barriers to using genetic information widely in health care are in many cases not technological or economic, but social and political. CONCLUSION: New technology enables efficient, large-scale analysis of the whole genome, genetic variations, and gene expression. Genomic analysis has profound clinical, economic, and social implications for health care.