The interaction between genetic factors and therapeutic drugs. This term applies to the study of variability in the genetic basis of disease susceptibility and drug responses at a population level.
The study of the relationship between a person’s genetic makeup and response to drug treatments.
Also termed pharmacogenetics the use of human genetic variations to optimize the discovery and development of drugs and the treatment of patients. The human race varies much more in its genetic make-up than has previously been realized; these variations in genes and their protein products could be utilized to provide safer and more effective drugs. Genes affect drug absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion. Drugs are designed and prescribed on the basis of a population’s needs, but patients comprise a diverse range of individuals. For example, nearly one-third of patients fail to respond to the cholesterol reducing group of drugs, the statins. Around half do not respond to the tricyclic antidepressant drugs. Over 80 per cent of patients’ responses to drugs depends on their genetics: this genetic variation needs to be identified so as to make the prescription of drugs more effective, and technology for analyzing genetic variants is progressing. Assessing drug effectiveness, however, is not simple because the health and diets of individuals are different and this can affect the response to a drug. Even so, the genetic identification of people who would or would not respond to a particular drug should benefit patients by ensuring a more accurately targeted drug and by reducing the risks to a person of side-effects from taking a drug that would not work. There would also be substantial economic savings.
The study of the effects of genetic differences among people and the impact that these differences have on the uptake, effectiveness, toxicity, and metabolism of drugs.