Theranostics is a portmanteau word created by linguistically blending 'therapeutics' and 'diagnostics'. Theranostics has indeed turned over a new leaf for medical diagnostics in the postgenom-ics era. The new concept of theranostics is made possible by integrating the application of molecular biomarkers across the continuum of tests and interventions ranging from disease susceptibility testing and the monitoring of clinical outcomes resulting from interventions, such as drugs (e.g., pharmacogenomic tests), nutrition (e.g., nutrigenomic tests) and vaccines (e.g., vaccinomic tests) [1-4]. Being crucial to both human health and diseases, theranostics therefore has inherent orientation towards improving global health and widespread societal issues such as poverty and conflicts that are intimately linked with health [3,4]
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