https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2025-2026/P_MPHMEDTo gain knowledge on the latest research, implications and future directions of personalised health and medicine research.Research has shown that an individual’s unique characteristics, genetic profile and environmental factors, play a significant role in both disease susceptibility and in the response to treatment. Personalised medicine is a rapidly developing and growing field and aims to predict more accurately an individual’s predisposition to developing a disease, achieve better diagnoses, earlier (preventive) interventions, and targeted and more efficient drug therapies (pharmacogenomics) and customized treatment. More recently, attention is also given to more personalised prevention of (health-related) behavior. This course will focus on the current state of affairs, implications and future prospects of personalised prevention and treatment related to health behaviour (e.g. substance abuse) mental health (e.g. major depressive disorder, ADHD) and physical health (e.g. diabetes, coronary heart disease). Attention will be given to the use of olygenetic scores in decision-making processes related to prevention and treatment, and the role of interplay of genes and the environment (e.g. life events, stress, lifestyle). In addition, methodology to gain more insights into personalised programs as well as ethical aspects will be discussed.Tuition consists of lectures, homework assignments, participation in workgroups involving discussions, presentations and group assignments.The final grade will be determined by the homework assignments (40%),essay (40%) and presentation (20%).Scientific articles and book chapters, to be announced via Canvas prior to the course. Additional reading material will be provided throughout the course.