[Perspectives on postgenome medicine in the 21st century].

Since the human genome project has been almost completed in 2000, the year of 2001 is the first year of the postgenomic era. A variety of postgenome studies will be done in the next decade, including functional, comparative and structural genomics. These studies may open new area in medicine, because disease susceptibility and drug metabolism would be predicted from genetic characteristics of individuals. Genome studies may also shed a light on cell biology, brain research and regeneration medicine and promote these studies. Bioinformatics will become a basis of postgenome biology and medicine.