This article provides a meeting report from the Duke Center for Personalized Medicine 2012 Symposium, which took place in Durham, NC, USA, on 29 March 2012. The event titled ‘At the Interface of Clinical Research and Clinical Medicine’, focused on many of the issues that arise as personalized medicine becomes integrated into clinical care. In particular, we summarize presentations on various topics: the future of genomic medicine, opportunities in pharmacogenomics and genetic testing; challenges in the clinical implementation of personalized medicine; systems medicine and biomedical informatics; the policy and education strategies for adopting personalized medicine; the common bond between comparative effectiveness and personalized medicine; and the value of personalized medicine.