Personalized, Evolutionary, and Ecological Dermatology

Book excerpt: This book discusses the exciting potential for dermatology to embrace developments to enhance the profession’s valuable pattern recognition, diagnostic, and treatment skills. Personalized medicine (PM) and genomics are easily accessible and enable the customization of healthcare using molecular analysis to influence medical decisions, practices, and therapies for the individual patient. The evolution of the skin, and the manner in which dermatological conditions are described and managed, reveals the need to consider many aspects on a personal level. New research data are based on the use of evolutionary medicine and genomics to highlight how we can become more successful at finding the most efficacious types of antibiotic or therapy and dosage for a particular disease or pathogen and build a competitive edge by prevention and risk management against invasive viruses, bacteria, or wrongly administered drugs. As more is understood about what grows on us and how it all interacts, along with how the introduction of new antibiotics, biologics, and other therapies affect our skin’s ecological balance, this book aims to create a heightened sense of the importance and offerings of ecological dermatology.