Advances in personalized medicine, or the use of an individual's molecular profile to direct the practice of medicine, have been greatly enabled through human genome research. This research is leading to the identification of a range of molecular markers for predisposition testing, disease screening and prognostic assessment, as well as markers used to predict and monitor drug response. Successful personalized medicine research programs will not only require strategies for developing and validating biomarkers, but also coordinating these efforts with drug discovery and clinical development.