###### Abstract  
Personalized medicine transforms healthcare by adapting interventions to individuals' unique genetic, molecular, and clinical profiles. To maximize diagnostic and/or therapeutic efficacy, personalized medicine requires advanced imaging devices and sensors for accurate assessment and monitoring of individual patient conditions or responses to therapeutics. In the field of biomedical optics, short-wave infrared (SWIR) techniques offer an array of capabilities that hold promise to significantly enhance diagnostics, imaging, and therapeutic interventions. SWIR techniques provide in vivo information, which was previously inaccessible, by making use of its capacity to penetrate biological tissues with reduced attenuation and enable researchers and clinicians to delve deeper into anatomical structures, physiological processes, and molecular interactions. Combining SWIR techniques with machine learning (ML), which is a powerful tool for analyzing information, holds the potential to provide unprecedented accuracy for disease detection, precision in treatment guidance, and correlations of complex biological features, opening the way for the data-driven personalized medicine field. Despite numerous biomedical demonstrations that utilize cutting-edge SWIR techniques, the clinical potential of this approach has remained significantly underexplored. This paper demonstrates how the synergy between SWIR imaging and ML is reshaping biomedical research and clinical applications. As the paper showcases the growing significance of SWIR imaging techniques that are empowered by ML, it calls for continued collaboration between researchers, engineers, and clinicians to boost the translation of this technology into clinics, ultimately bridging the gap between cutting-edge technology and its potential for personalized medicine. personalized medicine; short-wave infrared (SWIR) techniques; machine learning; deep learning; biomedical optics; individualized bioinstruments +
Footnote †: journal: _Personalized Medicine_  
to expand, we can anticipate the development of increasingly effective remedies. Central to this revolution is the integration of advanced technologies that can provide intricate insights into the inner workings of the human body. The concept of \"Individualized Bioinstruments\" envisions the creation of medical devices and tools that are custom-tailored to the unique needs and conditions of each patient, and facilities a data-driven personalized medicine approach. Personalized medicine benefits significantly from individualized bioinstrumentation, as it furnishes crucial tools and technologies to facilitate customized healthcare solutions in different ways, including: precise diagnosis, personalized treatment plans, monitoring and adaptation, early detection, targeted therapies, optimization of drug regimens, and data-driven decision-making. Key requirements for suitable bioinstruments in this comprehensive context encompass but are not limited to: high-resolution imaging, interoperability, real-time monitoring, cost-effectiveness, privacy and security, scalability, customization, data integration, and data analytics. Hence, the imaging and sensory devices that satisfy these requirements are of utmost importance. Optical bioinstruments, with their focus on user safety, compact size, cost-effectiveness, and their intrinsic sensitivity to disease-induced changes in the structure and environment of biomolecules and biostructures, offer the promise for extracting patient information to enable tailored treatments. Due to this transformative landscape, short-wave infrared (SWIR; 1000-1700 nm) techniques have emerged as a powerful and versatile optical tool for various biomedical applications that leverage the unique properties of SWIR light to penetrate biological tissues and provide high-resolution data about their composition and function, in vivo.