This is the promise — already well under way — of integrating genetics and epigenetics into everyday medical practice. Today, these two disciplines are revolutionising our understanding of health and medicine by enabling care and treatment to be personalised according to each patient’s unique biological characteristics.
Advances in genetics make it possible to identify inherited predispositions to conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders. Meanwhile, epigenetics reveals how the environment, diet and lifestyle influence gene expression, opening new avenues for a more preventive and individualised approach to care.
Personalised medicine in action
Long confined to research or a small number of rare diseases, genetics is now becoming a tool used across all medical specialties.
Combined with epigenetics — the science of reversible changes in gene expression — it offers a more detailed, more predictive and more preventive understanding of health.
Epigenetics explores how environmental factors such as diet, stress and exposure to toxins can alter gene expression, sometimes reversibly. These advances pave the way for precision medicine, making it possible to better anticipate and prevent disease while offering treatments more closely tailored to each patient.
In France, initiatives such as the France Genomic Medicine 2025 Plan and the Health Data Hub illustrate the national commitment to integrating genetics and epigenetics into care pathways. The PFMG 2025 places particular emphasis on personalising treatment through genomic sequencing for conditions such as cancer and rare diseases, and is expected to expand these applications to more common conditions. (pfmg2025.fr)
In addition, projects such as EPISOMA, funded by the Health Data Hub, explore the use of epigenetics to better understand and treat neurological diseases such as epilepsy by analysing the impact of environmental factors on gene expression. (health-data-hub.fr)
These initiatives show the importance of training in these new approaches to keep pace with the latest medical advances and offer truly personalised care based on a precise understanding of genetic predispositions and the impact of external factors on health.
Better prevention for better care
Genetic screening can now identify predispositions to conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disorders. In families at risk, it offers an opportunity to introduce tailored preventive measures aimed at reducing the occurrence of these diseases.
At the same time, epigenetics sheds light on the impact of lifestyle on health: stress, diet, smoking and physical activity alter gene expression. These changes, although reversible, can influence the development of chronic conditions.
In France, initiatives such as the France Genomic Medicine 2025 Plan and the Health Data Hub illustrate the national commitment to integrating genetics and epigenetics into care pathways. These advances highlight the importance of training in these new approaches to keep pace with medical developments and provide high-quality care.
Towards targeted treatments
In oncology, tumour genomics identifies mutations specific to each cancer so that treatments can be adapted. Immunotherapy, gene therapy and PARP inhibitors are all practical examples of precision oncology.
Every specialty is involved
- Nutrition: why do two people respond differently to the same diet? Nutrigenetics and nutritional epigenetics explain these variations by adapting dietary recommendations to genetic profiles.
- Paediatrics: newborn screening and early diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders.
- Psychiatry: identifying variants associated with depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
- Gynaecology: genetic tests for breast cancer risk (BRCA1/2), as well as endometriosis and premature menopause.
- Dermatology: a detailed understanding of diseases such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis.
A transition under way, with challenges ahead
This revolution requires a profound shift in practice: continuing professional development, ethical support for patients and equitable access to innovation. But the possibilities are immense.
Integrating genetics and epigenetics is no longer a prospect for the future: it is already a clinical reality. By placing the individual — in all their biological and environmental complexity — at the centre of care, medicine is entering a new era. An era of predictive, preventive, personalised and participatory medicine.
Through ADNAcademy, healthcare professionals can access rigorous training based on the latest scientific advances, enabling them to integrate genetics and epigenetics into everyday practice and move towards truly personalised medicine.