Personalized drug therapy uses biological indicators, or “biomarkers” – such as DNA sequences or the presence or absence of drug receptors – as an indicator of how patients should be treated, as well as to estimate the likelihood that the intervention will be effective. This concept is not new: it has been known for decades, for example, that people who have a genetic deficiency of an enzyme called G6PD can experience severe and precipitous anemia if they are exposed to certain drugs.
个性化药物疗法使用生物指标，即所谓的“生物标记”——比如DNA序列以及是否存在药物受容体——作为应该如何治疗病患的指标，同时估算疗法产生效果的可能性。这一概念并不新颖：比如，几十年前人们就已经知道，有的人体内一种叫G6PD的酶存在基因缺陷，某些药物可以导致他们产生严重的急性贫血。