Frequently Asked Questions About Pharmacogenomics

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Pharmacogenomics uses information about a person's genetic makeup, or genome, to choose the drugs and drug doses that are likely to work best for that particular person. This new field combines the science of how drugs work, called pharmacology, with the science of the human genome, called genomics.

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Until recently, drugs have been developed with the idea that each drug works pretty much the same in everybody. But genomic research has changed that "one size fits all" approach and opened the door to more personalized approaches to using and developing drugs.

Depending on your genetic makeup, some drugs may work more or less effectively for you than they do in other people. Likewise, some drugs may produce more or fewer side effects in you than in someone else. In the near future, doctors will be able to routinely use information about your genetic makeup to choose those drugs and drug doses that offer the greatest chance of helping you.

Pharmacogenomics may also help to save you time and money. By using information about your genetic makeup, doctors soon may be able to avoid the trial-and-error approach of giving you various drugs that are not likely to work for you until they find the right one. Using pharmacogenomics, the "best-fit" drug to help you can be chosen from the beginning.

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Doctors are starting to use pharmacogenomic information to prescribe drugs, but such tests are routine for only a few health problems. However, given the field's rapid growth, pharmacogenomics is soon expected to lead to better ways of using drugs to manage heart disease, cancer, asthma, depression and many other common diseases.

One current use of pharmacogenomics involves people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Before prescribing the antiviral drug abacavir (Ziagen), doctors now routinely test HIV-infected patients for a genetic variant that makes them more likely to have a bad reaction to the drug.

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FAQ About Pharmacogenomics