The cloud gets personal: Perspectives on cloud computing for personalized medicine

Cloud computing, at its most fundamental level, is a technology that allows computing to occur as an on-demand utility. Personalized medicine is revolutionizing the field of medicine, and aims to provide individualized treatment for patients, based on their genetic material and medical history, through comparisons to genetic material from thousands of other patients. Better patient outcomes are expected in a personalized medicine domain as compared to more generic generalized options. In this paper the authors explore the use of cloud computing in the area of personalized medicine examining unique benefits and opportunities. They also recognize and discuss the presence of some inherent risks. Using the cloud for personalized medicine can expedite collaborations and data collection across different clinicians, researchers and other stakeholders involved in the fight against diseases. This paper examines key elements associated with using cloud computing in the specialized area of personalized medicine.