If you had to explain your fields of pharmacogenetics, pharmacogenomics and clinical evaluation to a 4th grade science class, what would you say?
Dr. Wolfgang Sadee
The Ohio State University
In an article on the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, read how Dr. Wolfgang Sadee explained pharmacogenetics to a 4th grade science class…
“We know that everyone is an individual and each one is different. These differences come about at least in part through genetics. The genetic information that is contained in the DNA in every cell determines how you look like, what you do, how you feel, and so on. The fields of pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics explore how this difference in genetics affects your risk of actually getting a disease later in life and how it affect your response to drugs. People respond differently to the drugs they take. Take aspirin, for example. While it does its job well for most people, some cannot tolerate it and get stomach bleeding. We would like to find out why responses differ and utilize this information to optimize drug therapy for each patient individually. We think people all need to get somewhat different medication in order to be helped optimally.
Pharmacogenetics is a discipline that is already about 50 years old. Back then we usually looked at a single gene that could be defective in how it metabolizes a drug in the body. But now we know about all genes in the body and we understand that each drug interacts with numerous proteins in each gene. This means that genetic variations in a very large number of genes can affect the body’s response to the drug, so that is why we now look at all genes at the same time. This field of study is called genomics.”
Read more at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists
To learn more about pharmacogenetics, contact:
PGx Medical
Individualized Care – Personalized Medicine
info@pgxmed.com
405-509-5112