Pharmacogenetics is the study of the genetic basis for variation in drug response. In this broadest sense, pharmacogenetics encompasses pharmacogenomics, which employs tools for surveying the entire genome to assess multigenic determinants of drug response. Until the technical advances in genomics of the last few years, pharmacogenetics proceeded using a forward genetic, phenotype-to-genotype a...

Etanercept, infliximab and adalimumab have shown clinical benefit in immune-mediated inflammatory diseases; however, the outcome of treatment with these tumour-necrosis factor inhibitors remains insufficient in 40–60% of individuals with rheumatoid arthritis. Moreover, their use is accompanied by adverse events and unintentional immune suppression. Pharmacogenetics has the potential to increase...

Genetic constitution represents an important cause for individual variations in the response and tolerance to drug treatment. Th ese variations are due to the germline mutations in genes that encode for drug-metabolizing enzymes, transporters, cellular targets and signaling pathways. Th e identifi cation of genetic variations that predict for drug response is an important step towards the trans...

The PharmGKB (http://www.pharmgkb.org/) is a pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics knowledge base built to support the representation, storage, analysis and dissemination of genotype and phenotype data. We have collected genetic sequence data from research centers in which polymorphic variations in genes of pharmacogenetic interest have been characterized in particular populations. PharmGKB als...

Physicians prescribing drugs are routinely confronted with the balance between efficacy and toxicity. Pharmacogenetics involves the study of how inheritance influences response to drugs, and its goal is to enable the appropriate selection of these individuals, thus eliminating unpredictable responses. Pharmacogenetics can be used to identify target populations that either will have minimal bene...

The approval of new medicines has slowed significantly over the past years. In order to accelerate the development of new compounds, novel approaches in drug development are required. Translational medicine or research, an emerging discipline on the frontier of basic science and medical practice, has the potential to enhance the speed and efficiency of the drug development process through the u...

The Pharmacogenetics Knowledge Base (PharmGKB; http://www.pharmgkb.org/) contains genomic, phenotype and clinical information collected from ongoing pharmacogenetic studies. Tools to browse, query, download, submit, edit and process the information are available to registered research network members. A subset of the tools is publicly available. PharmGKB currently contains over 150 genes under ...

This review is based on a symposium/roundtable session, sponsored by the Division of Toxicology of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, that was held at the 2002 Experimental Biology meeting in New Orleans, LA. The focus is on the role of pharmacogenomics in determining individual susceptibility to chemically induced toxicity. An individual’s risk of disease from...