Omics in precision medicine

Abstract

Cancer is a multifaceted and complex disease that results from the disruption of genetic, epigenetic, and metabolic systems responsible for maintaining physiological conditions in the cell. Despite an increase in studies on the pathogenesis of cancer and numerous advancements in diagnosis and treatment in recent years, drug treatments that are expected to be beneficial due to the heterogeneous nature of cancer are not effective in every patient. In some cases, cancer may become aggressive due to drug resistance in the tumour cell or recurrence after treatment. The development of personalized medicine approaches, which are crucial for a comprehensive understanding of the nature of the tumour in each patient, has emerged in the last 10-15 years as a result of this challenging situation. Establishing therapy options and managing treatments in the context of data from multi-omic approaches is believed to be urgently necessary, and this view has also accelerated the implementation of precision medicine in oncology in recent years. The top five most prevalent cancers in the world will be the subject of this chapter as we review fundamental ideas and current technologies in genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and phosphoproteomics, metabolomics, and single-cell omics research. We also discuss their potential for use in diagnosis and therapy in precision medicine in oncology by summarizing potential molecular targets and molecules discovered in multi-omics techniques. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.