Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia and sixth cause of death in elderly adults. AD poses a huge economic burden on society and constitutes an unprecedented challenge for caregivers and families affected. Aging of the population is projected to drastically aggravate the situation in the near future.

To date, no therapy is available to prevent or ameliorate the disease. Moreover, several clinical trials for promising therapeutic agents have failed. Lack of supporting biomarker data for pre-symptomatic enrollment and inaccurate stratification of patients based on genetic heterogeneity appear to be contributing factors to this lack of success.

Recently, the treatment of cancer has seen enormous advances based on the personalized genetics and biomarkers of the individual patient, forming the foundation of precision medicine for cancer. Likewise, technological progress in AD biomarker research promises the availability of reliable assays for pathology staging on a routine basis relatively soon. Moreover, tremendous achievements in AD genetics and high-throughput genotyping technology allow identification of predisposing risk alleles accurately and on a large scale. Finally, availability of electronic health records (EHR) promises the opportunity to integrate biomarker, genomic and clinical data efficiently. Together, these advances will form the basis of precision medicine for AD.

阿尔茨海默病（AD）是导致痴呆症的主要原因，也是老年人的第六大死因。 AD 给社会带来了巨大的经济负担，并对受影响的护理人员和家庭构成了前所未有的挑战。预计人口老龄化将在不久的将来使情况急剧恶化。

迄今为止，尚无可用的疗法来预防或改善该疾病。此外，一些有希望的治疗药物的临床试验都失败了。缺乏症状前登记的生物标志物数据支持以及基于遗传异质性的患者分层不准确似乎是导致这种失败的因素。

最近，基于个体患者的个性化遗传学和生物标志物的癌症治疗取得了巨大进步，形成了癌症精准医学的基础。同样，AD 生物标志物研究的技术进步有望相对较快地在常规基础上提供可靠的病理分期检测方法。此外，AD遗传学和高通量基因分型技术的巨大成就使得能够准确、大规模地识别易感风险等位基因。最后，电子健康记录 (EHR) 的可用性带来了有效整合生物标志物、基因组和临床数据的机会。这些进步将共同构成 AD 精准医学的基础。