ABSTRACT
The sequencing of the human genome has become the foundation for one of the most signišcant scientišc contributions to mankind; the idea that although all human individuals are genetically similar, each retains a unique genetic identity. The publication of the human blueprint has triggered an explosion in pharmaceutical research to utilize this knowledge in the prescription of drugs to be tailored according to the genetic makeup of susceptible individuals or in other words
17.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 319 17.2 Cardiovascular Diseases ..................................................................................................... 320
17.2.1 Anticoagulant: Warfarin ......................................................................................... 321 17.2.2 Anti-In·ammatory and Antiplatelet Agents ........................................................... 321 17.2.3 Clopidogrel .............................................................................................................. 322 17.2.4 Antihypertensives ................................................................................................... 322 17.2.5 Beta Blocker Drugs ................................................................................................. 323 17.2.6 Statins ...................................................................................................................... 323
17.3 Cancer ................................................................................................................................. 323 17.3.1 Drugs Used in Breast Cancer .................................................................................. 324 17.3.2 Drugs Used in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia ............................................................ 324 17.3.3 Drugs Used in Pancreatic Cancer ........................................................................... 324
17.4 Rheumatoid Arthritis .......................................................................................................... 324 17.5 Epilepsy ............................................................................................................................... 325 17.6 Osteoporosis ........................................................................................................................ 325 17.7 Obesity ................................................................................................................................ 326 17.8 Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 .................................................................................................... 326 17.9 In·ammatory Bowel Disease .............................................................................................. 327 17.10 Asthma ................................................................................................................................ 327 17.11 Conclusion/Clinical Perspectives ........................................................................................ 328 References ...................................................................................................................................... 329
personalized medicine. In fact, half century ago, well before the Human Genome Project, scientists had realized that inheritance was an important factor responsible for individual variation in drug response (Kalow, 1962; Venter et al., 2001). This led to the birth of the term pharmacogenetics. Pharmacogenetics is the study of the role of inheritance in interindividual variation in drug response. Although human beings are 99.9% similar in their genetic makeup, this 0.1% variability in terms of single-nucleotide polymorphisms is signišcantly accountable for an individual’s susceptibility to diseases and inter-and intraindividual variation of drug response (Brooks, 1999). In recent years, the convergence of advances in pharmacogenetics with the genomic revolution has led to the evolution of pharmacogenetics into pharmacogenomics. Pharmacogenomics refers to the entire spectrum of genes responsible for pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic variation of drug response (Dubey et al., 2008). Therefore the traditional classic approach of clinical therapy, trial and error or one dose šts for all, is to be reconsidered in the case of drugs with narrow therapeutic range that result in drug toxicity and treatment failure (Spear et al., 2001).
