Realities and Expectations of Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine: Impact of Translating Genetic Knowledge into Clinical Practice

Abstract

The implementation of genetic data for a better prediction of response to medications and adverse drug reactions is becoming a reality in some clinical fields. However, to be successful, personalized medicine should take advantage of an informational structured framework of genetic, phenotypic and environmental factors in order to provide the healthcare system with useful tools that can optimize the effectiveness of specific treatment. The impact of personalized medicine is potentially enormous, but the results that have so far been gathered are often difficult to translate into clinical practice. In this article we have summarized the most relevant applications of pharmacogenomics on diseases to which they have already been applied and fields in which they are currently emerging. The article provides an overview of the opportunities and shortcomings of the implementation of genetic information into personalized medicine and its full adoption in the clinic. In the second instance, it provides readers from different fields of expertise with an accessible interpretation to the barriers and opportunities in the use/adoption of pharmacogenomic testing between the different clinical areas.

KEYWORDS::

• adverse drug reaction
• cancer
• cardiovascular disease
• genetic test
• infectious disease
• personalized medicine
• pharmacogenomics
• psychiatry

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Tarryn Greenberg, Managing Commissioning Editor (Pharmacogenomics), for soliciting this article, parts of which have been presented at the 2009 Golden Helix Symposium^® ‘Pharmacogenomics: Paving the path to personalized medicine‘, held in Athens, Greece, 15–17 October 2009. The authors gratefully acknowledge Ms Mary Groeneweg for commenting on the manuscript and Mr Sean Scaccia for his assistance with the graphical design.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was partly supported by the Regional Councillorship of Health, ‘Regione Autonoma della Sardegna‘ with a grant dedicated to Drug Information and surveillance Projects to Alessio Squassina, Mirko Manchia, Maria Del Zompo and by grants from the European Commission (GEN2PHEN; FP7200754 and the Research Promotion Foundation of Cyprus ( ΠΔΕ046_02) and the University of Patras Research budget to George P Patrinos. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly supported by the Regional Councillorship of Health, ‘Regione Autonoma della Sardegna‘ with a grant dedicated to Drug Information and surveillance Projects to Alessio Squassina, Mirko Manchia, Maria Del Zompo and by grants from the European Commission (GEN2PHEN; FP7200754 and the Research Promotion Foundation of Cyprus ( ΠΔΕ046_02) and the University of Patras Research budget to George P Patrinos. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.