Pharmacogenetics: data, concepts and tools to improve drug discovery and drug treatment.

ABSTRACT: Variation in the human genome is a most important cause of variable response to drugs and other xenobiotics. Susceptibility to almost all diseases is determined to some extent by genetic variation. Driven by the advances in molecular biology, pharmacogenetics has evolved within the past 40 years from a niche discipline to a major driving force of clinical pharmacology, and it is currently one of the most actively pursued disciplines in applied biomedical research in general. Nowadays we can assess more than 1,000,000 polymorphisms or the expression of more than 25,000 genes in each participant of a clinical study -- at affordable costs. This has not yet significantly changed common therapeutic practices, but a number of physicians are starting to consider polymorphisms, such as those in CY

SUBMITTER: Brockmoller J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2235910 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature