Obama proposes precision medicine to end 'one size fits all'

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is calling for an investment to move away from one-size-fits-all-medicine, toward an approach that tailors treatment to your genes.

The a White House official said Friday that Obama will ask Congress for $215 million for what he's calling a precision medicine initiative. The ambitious goal: Scientists will assemble databases of about a million volunteers to study their genetics - along with other factors such as their environments and the microbes that live in their bodies - to learn how to individualize care.

Also called personalized medicine, this is a hot but challenging field in medical research, and it's already yielded some results. For example, it's becoming more common for patients with certain cancers to undergo molecular testing in choosing which drug is their best match.