A woman with severe depression walks into her doctor’s office. He plucks a hair from her head to test her DNA. Later that day, after scanning the results, he prescribes the antidepressant drug that should work best for her. So began a New Scientist feature from 1998, which continued: “Patients could soon be taking drugs tailored to their genetic make-up, saving time and bundles of money now wasted on ineffective treatments, as well as minimising debilitating side effects” (14 November 1998, p 32).
Almost a decade later, this vision of personalised medicine has yet to become reality. People with…
