Genomic data analysis for personalized medicine

Empowered by newly emerging biotechnologies and hence the fast generation of biological and medical information, advanced genomic research promises the whole field unprecedented opportunities and hopes for genome scale study of challenging problems in life science. For example, advances in genomic technology made it possible to study the complete genomic landscapes of healthy individuals or of any complex diseases [21, 20, 136], the genome-wide responses to certain genetic and chemical perturbations [72, 68, 92] or drug treatment [9], and the large-scale molecular changes that are associated to various disease phenotypes [54]. Many of such research efforts have proven to be highly promising to generate new insights into the biology of human disease and to predict the individual response to treatment, which therefore could enhances our understanding of the underlying mechanisms, promote the knowledge exchange between doctors and patients, and facilitate clinical decision making.