Pharmacogenomics and the Failing Heart

n Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot, the characters ait by a country roadside for a person named Godot, who ever arrives (1). Godot’s conspicuous absence throughout he play has fostered a variety of different religious, philoophical, and psychoanalytical interpretations, and has led o the use of the phrase “waiting for Godot” as an expression or waiting for someone or something that will never arrive. ver the past several years, a series of intriguing observaions has arisen with regard to the role genetic variations polymorphisms) in signaling pathways that contribute to isease progression in the failing heart (2,3). These obserations have given rise to the hope that information regardng genetic polymorphisms might be harnessed to develop ersonalized therapeutic strategies for patients with heart ailure. However, this type of genetic information has not een clinically useful thus far, insofar as many of the genetic ssociations that have been reported have not been indeendently replicated.