Pharmacogenomics Steps Toward Personalized Medicine

R EVIEW

Pharmacogenomics steps toward personalized medicine
Hong-Guang Xie1† &
Felix W Frueh2
†Author

for correspondence

1Vanderbilt University School

of Medicine,
Division of Clinical
Pharmacology,
Departments of Medicine and
Pharmacology,
Nashville, TN 37232–6602,
USA
E-mail: hong-guang.xie@ vanderbilt.edu 2US Food & Drug
Administration,
Center for Drug Evaluation and Research,
Office of Clinical
Pharmacology and
Biopharmaceutics,
1451 Rockville Pike,
HFD-860, Room 2040,
Rockville, MD 20852, USA

Keywords: customized medication, gene–drug interaction, genetic personalization, individualized treatment, mechanism-based therapeutics, personalized medicine, pharmacogenetics, pharmacogenomics, tailored dosage, targeted therapy

The goal of personalized medicine is to maximize the likelihood of therapeutic efficacy and to minimize the risk of drug toxicity for an individual patient. One of the major contributors to this concept is pharmacogenomics. Marked interindividual genetic variation contributes significantly to both susceptibility to diseases, and response to drugs.
Even though pharmacogenomics is not a new science, the translation of pharmacogenomics into clinical practice (i.e., personalized medicine) has not taken place at the same pace as science is delivering new results. It is felt that a large number of recent pharmacogenomic findings allow bold steps to be taken toward personalized medicine.
This review collates a variety of examples that have great potential for immediate and effective introduction into clinical practice. In addition, other exploratory examples with a particular focus on drug safety and targeted cancer therapy are summarized.

During the past decade, in particular after the completion of the Human Genome Project [1,2], an explosion of information regarding genetic susceptibility to complex diseases and genetic variability in drug responses was observed.
Genomics has become an integral part of modern drug development, and a large

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