FORMER US president Bill Clinton called the newly sequenced human genome the 鈥渕ost important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind鈥�. Much was made of how personalised medicine would boom in its wake, and much has since been made of how the reality has yet to live up to the hype, despite the relentless fall in the cost of genome sequencing.
But to shift from 鈥渕edicine for all鈥� to a truly tailored approach means more than applied genetics. We report how 鈥渙rgans on chips鈥�, from hearts to brains, are being interconnected with a view to creating a micro model of a patient (see 鈥�Building a human on a chip, organ by organ鈥�). Meanwhile, the forges on hoping one day to simulate an individual patient鈥檚 response to a therapy. Personalised medicine is by no means in the doldrums 鈥� it鈥檚 growing up in all kinds of novel, fascinating ways.