no_english_version
no_arabic_version
Mayo Clinic
  • Request an Appointment
  • Find a Doctor
  • Find a Job
  • Give Now
  • Log in to Patient Account
  • English
    • Español
    • العربية
    • 简体中文
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
  • English
    • Español
    • العربية
    • 简体中文
mayo-mobile-logo-image
  • Menu
  • Search
All Mayo Clinic Topics
  • Care at Mayo Clinic
    • Overview
    • Appointments
    • Locations
    • Patient & Visitor Guide
    • International Services
    • Medical Departments & Centers
    • Doctors & Medical Staff
    • Patient Online Services
    • Billing & Insurance
    • Clinical Trials
    • International Business Collaborations
    • About Mayo Clinic
    • Contact Us
  • Health Information
    • Overview
    • Diseases & Conditions A-Z
    • Symptoms A-Z
    • Tests & Procedures A-Z
    • Drugs & Supplements A-Z
    • Health Books
    • Healthy Living Program
    • Mayo Clinic Health Letter
    • Mayo Clinic Voice Apps
    • Healthy Lifestyle

    Featured conditions

    Brain tumor, breast cancer, colon cancer, congenital heart disease, heart arrhythmia. See more conditions.
  • For Medical Professionals
    • Overview
    • Provider Relations
    • CareLink Online Referrals
    • Continuing Medical Education
    • Mayo Clinic Laboratories
    • AskMayoExpert
    • Video Center
    • Journals and Publications
  • Research
    • Overview
    • Research Faculty
    • Laboratories
    • Core Facilities
    • Centers & Programs
    • Departments & Divisions
    • Clinical Trials
    • Institutional Review Board
    • Postdoctoral Fellowships
    • Training Grant Programs
  • College of Medicine and Science
    • Overview
    • Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
    • Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine
    • Mayo Clinic School of Continuous Professional Development
    • Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education
    • Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences
  • Giving to Mayo Clinic
    • Overview
    • Give Now
    • Philanthropy in Action
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Contact Us to Give
Centers and Programs

Center for Individualized Medicine

  • About
    • About
    • About the Center
    • Director Insights
    • Faculty
    • Careers
    • Video Center
  • COVID-19 Response
  • Patient Care
    • Patient Care
    • Patient Care Services
    • Requesting An Appointment
    • Preparing For Your Appointment
    • Meeting With Your Care Team
    • Understanding Test Results
    • Pharmacogenomics in Patient Care
    • Video Center
  • Research
    • Research
    • Programs
    • Collaborations
    • Clinical Studies
    • Clinical Trials
    • Laboratory Services
    • Emerging Science
    • Publications
  • Education
    • Education Program
    • Gerstner Family Career Development Awards
    • Conference
    • Genes & Health Podcast
    • Video Center
  • Conference
  • Blog
  • Contact
    • Contact
    • Contact Form

Patient Stories

Mayo Clinic has provided personalized care to every one of its patients for nearly 150 years. But in recent years, advances in genomic and clinical science have created innovative opportunities to further tailor health care to each patient through individualized medicine, also called personalized or precision medicine. Learn more in the videos below and on the Center for Individualized Medicine's YouTube channel.

Premature Aging Symptoms Tied to Shorter DNA Strands — Morgan's Story

Morgan was diagnosed with short telomere syndrome, caused by inherited gene alterations.

Genetic Testing's Impact on Patient Care — Mallory's Story

Mallory shares her family's struggle with having low platelets in the blood.

When Cancer Touches a Family — Larry's Story

Larry's metastatic pancreatic cancer was linked to an inherited BRC2 gene alteration.

Rare Disease Research and Genetic Testing — Katie & Allie's Story

Genetic testing finds rare, but collectively common genetic diseases.

Predictive Genetic Testing Clinical Practice — Conner's Story

Predictive genetic testing helps the family of a young patient with ulcerative colitis.

Genetic Testing's Impact on Patient Care — Paige's Story

Whole-exome sequencing probes into a young patient's bone and joint pain.

A Journey of Hope — Karter's Story

RNA sequencing identifies DNA changes that caused genetic irregularities affecting Karter's growth and development.

Pharmacogenomic Testing — Nicole's Story

Pharmacogenomic testing provided insight into why certain medications didn't work for Nicole.

Pharmacogenomic Testing — Karen's Story

Pharmacogenomic testing helps a patient and her family members find answers to health-related questions.

Individualized Medicine — Andrew's Story

Applied pharmacogenomics resolves a patient's lifelong anxiety and depression.

Individualized Medicine — Dianne's Story

Microbiome transplant clears a patient's antibiotic-resistant intestinal infection.

Individualized Medicine — Denis' Story

Genome sequencing reveals a rare gene variation.

Individualized Medicine — Holly's Story

Sequencing uncovers the genetic makeup of an aggressive tumor.

Individualized Medicine — Dustin's Story

Genome sequencing provides a diagnosis for a rare neurological disorder.

Individualized Medicine — Javrie's Story

Obscure symptoms are mapped to a rare pediatric disorder.

Exome Sequencing and Impact on Patient Care — Michelle's & Damask's Stories

Two Mayo Clinic research participants who found out they carry a hereditary breast cancer variation share their experiences.

How Phage Therapy May Help Combat Drug-Resistant Infections — John's Story

Intravenous phage therapy for a severe bacterial infection saved a patient's leg from amputation.

Personalized Medicine Concepts

Individualized, precision or personalized medicine provides a genomic blueprint to determine each person's unique disease susceptibility, define preventive measures and enable targeted therapies to promote wellness.

Biomarker Discovery Animation

Biomarker discovery captures genetic information from cells and analyzes it, searching for genetic patterns to help physicians make more precise diagnoses and prescribe more effective, individualized treatments.

Microbiome Animation

Microbiome research explores the genetic code of the body's microorganisms, using the latest techniques to profile an individual's microbiome to detect, prevent and diagnose infections and other diseases.

Pharmacogenomics Animation

Pharmacogenomics investigates how variations in genes affect response to medications, using a patient's genetic profile to predict a drug's efficacy, guide dosage and improve patient safety.

Genomic Sequencing Animation

Genomic sequencing is a process for analyzing a sample of DNA taken from your blood. In the lab, technicians extract DNA and prepare it for sequencing.

Clinomics Animation

Clinomics quickly moves discoveries from the research lab to the clinical setting, with practical, cost-efficient genomic tests for diagnosing and treating patients.

Epigenomics Animation

Epigenomics investigates the role of the epigenome, which factors act on individual genes, and how certain changes in the epigenome affect personal health.

Personalized Medicine 101

Better diagnoses, earlier interventions, more-efficient drug therapies, customized treatment plans — these are the promises of personalized medicine, also known as precision medicine or individualized medicine.

Personalizing Care Preventing Disease

Center for Individualized Medicine

Careers In Personalized Medicine

Workforce of the Future

Individualized medicine is just changing the way we practice. It's bringing an entirely new way of looking at the patient and looking at healthcare. There's a huge number of patients out there that have existed with rare and undiagnosed diseases, and for decades they had no answer. And now we've seen a revolution through individualized medicine that allows us to diagnose many of those patients, and truly transform their lives.

Today we're generating an enormous amount of data, and therefore we need computational expertise to be able to take all those pixels of data, all those bits of data, and put them together in a way that we can understand the puzzling situation of some diseases that affect patients.

One of the most important things we've come across is actually the education of the workforce. We need to educate our investigators so that they can understand the power of what the data can do as they're working toward these new discoveries. But just as much so, we need to educate our health care providers, so that when they're presented with this data and these opportunities to change the way they manage patients, they know what it means and they know how to react to that data.

We like to excite our researchers and technicians because this is what creates new discoveries, new opportunities.

You get it and you learn and you see things that you didn't even think were possible or you didn't even know existed, and it just lights up your imagination. This is a chance to do something that you're passionate about and change patients' lives. And that is really a tremendous thing.

From providing the best individualized care, to addressing the world's most challenging healthcare problems, Mayo researchers here at the Center are relentlessly pursuing discoveries that deliver hope and better health to people today, and for generations to come. Thank you.

Katie Burbank, R.N., Genetic Nurse

I never planned to be a nurse. I wanted to train horses. I came from an agricultural family, and genetics played a big role in farming. But when I was five, my mom got a job as a lab tech in muscle research here at Mayo. I was exposed to frozen slides, electron microscopes, and the idea of research. I first went to school for animal science, but horses don't make a lot of money. My brother suggested I try nursing, as he and his wife were both nurses. So I did. I ended up in high-risk obstetrics, which involves genetics. One thing led to another, and here I am, a genetic nurse. Genetics and nursing go together like milk an cookies. I love to see people become empowered with knowledge about their condition. I love the discovery part of genetics and trying something new and out of my comfort zone. Genetics is like The Matrix. Once you learn about it, you see code everywhere.

Nicholas Chia, Ph.D., Microbiome Scientist

Margot Cousin, Ph.D., Genetic Scientist

Dusica Babovic-Vuksanovic, M.D., Medical Geneticist

Matthew J. Ferber, Ph.D., Clinical Genetic Scientist

Teresa M. Kruisselbrink, M.S., L.C.G.C., Genetic Counselor

Eric Matey, Pharm.D., R.Ph., Pharmacogenomics Pharmacist

Asha A. Nair, M.S., Ph.D., Bioinformatician

Denise M. Dupras, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Director — Education

My love for learning started early, as a kid. I always loved science and mysteries. Science was one of my favorite subjects. My teachers said I was the only one who could be an astrophysicist.

Even into college, medicine wasn't on my radar, despite being told it should be. I majored in computer science my first year, but after spending a summer working in my dad's pharmacy, I recognized that I needed to work with people. I didn't think I wanted to follow in his footsteps until that summer. I changed my major to pharmacy and, after thinking about where I could make the most difference, decided to pursue medicine. I was accepted into Mayo Clinic’s first M.D.-Ph.D. class and combined my interest in medicine and pharmacology.

Dr. Richard Weinshilboum was one of my mentors. My Ph.D. project focused on pharmacogenetic drug interactions and drug metabolism. At that time, pharmacogenomics was not a word in my vocabulary, but it was on the horizon. As a lifelong learner and strong advocate of evidence-based medicine, it was inevitable that as the field of individualized medicine evolved, I was going to embrace it as a way to provide the best medicine for my patients.

As an internal medicine physician and educator, working with patients and discussing pharmacogenomics in genomics is the perfect blend. I'm fond of saying when I talked with Dr. Weinshilboum, that the idiosyncratic responses that were mysteries in the past were probably just gene-drug interactions we didn't yet know about.

Personalized Medicine Provider Insights

The Genes & Your Health podcast miniseries distills the latest concepts in genetics that are essential to providing the best care for patients. Join us as we discuss how primary care providers and health care teams can apply this information to individualize and optimize care of patients in their own practices. Listen for free or register to claim CME credit.

Pharmacogenomics: Collaboration With Pharmacists

Imad Absah, M.D.

Pharmacogenomics: Importance of Patient Care

Imad Absah, M.D.

Pharmacogenomics: Importance of Patient Care

Imad Absah, M.D.

Pharmacogenomics: Patient Stories — Crohn's, Acid Reflux & Anxiety

Imad Absah, M.D.

Pharmacogenomics: Patient Stories — Esophagitis, Ulcers & Acid Reflux

Imad Absah, M.D.

Pharmacogenomics: When to Use PGx Testing

Imad Absah, M.D.

Pharmacogenomics: Advice for Colleagues

Stephanie L. Hines, M.D.

Pharmacogenomics: Personal Testing

Stephanie L. Hines, M.D.

Pharmacogenomics: Provider Stories

Konstantinos N. Lazaridis, M.D.

Pharmacogenomics: Concerns of PGx Testing

Michael C. Stephens, M.D.

Pharmacogenomics: New Clinical Tool for Patient Care

Michael C. Stephens, M.D.

Pharmacogenomics: Traditional Use of PGx Testing

Michael C. Stephens, M.D.

Center for Individualized Medicine Programs

The Center for Individualized Medicine at Mayo Clinic is taking the practice of personalized medicine and applying it to the entire spectrum of health care using sophisticated methods of genomic sequencing and molecular analysis to drive advances in diagnosis, treatment, prediction and prevention.

Biomarker Discovery Program

George Vasmatzis, Ph.D.

Clinomics: A New Clinical Care

Matthew J. Ferber, Ph.D., and Eric D. Wieben, Ph.D.

Epigenomics Program

Mrinal S. Patnaik, M.B.B.S., co-director, Epigenomics Program

Microbiome Bacteria and Our Bodies

Heidi Nelson, M.D., professor of surgery

Pharmacogenomics: Genes and Drugs

Richard Weinshilboum, M.D.

Your Genome, Our Responsibilities

Richard Sharp, Ph.D., director, Bioethics Program

Understanding Your Genome

Jean-Pierre A. Kocher, Ph.D.

The Foundation and Future of Genomics Research

James R. Cerhan, M.D., Ph.D., chair, Artificial Intelligence & Informatics Research

Making the Connections That Make Genomics Work

James D. Buntrock

The Science Behind the Sequence

Eric D. Wieben, Ph.D., director, Medical Genome Facility

.

Mayo Clinic Footer

  • Request Appointment
  • Symptom Checker
  • Give Now
  • Contact Us
  • About Mayo Clinic
  • Employees
  • Site Map
  • About This Site

Legal Conditions and Terms

Any use of this site constitutes your agreement to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy linked below.

  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Notice of Privacy Practices
  • Notice of Nondiscrimination
  • Manage Cookies

Advertising

Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization and proceeds from Web advertising help support our mission. Mayo Clinic does not endorse any of the third party products and services advertised.

  • Advertising and sponsorship policy
  • Advertising and sponsorship opportunities

Reprint Permissions

A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. "Mayo," "Mayo Clinic," "MayoClinic.org," "Mayo Clinic Healthy Living," and the triple-shield Mayo Clinic logo are trademarks of Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research.

© 1998-2023 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. All rights reserved.