The future promise of personalised medicine through pharmacogenetics

Adverse pharmaceutical drug reactions are responsible for the deaths and impairment of a very large number of people across the world each year. In the USA alone it is estimated that 1 million people are hospitalised each year as a result of an adverse reaction to prescription medications. Of these 50% are fatal. Adverse drug reactions to illicit street drugs are also commonplace, with the added complication that these pharmacologically active substances often have very little quality control in their preparation. Pharmacogenetics is a new field which offers promise in helping to overcome the problems of adverse drug reactions. With the human genome project completed, scientists are now working out which parts of our DNA sequence message outside of genes provide molecular markers for the way individuals will absorb and metabolise specific drug classes. The future is that a rapid DNA test will enable physicians to oonfidently prescribe drug classes and doses suited to each individual's metabolism and allergy disposition. Getting rapid and cheap DNA testing on a microchip is not that far away. The speaker's research interests over his academic career have included synthetic chemistry, drug design and oo-elopment, pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, toxicology, physiology, biochemistry, forensic science and molecular genetics. This talk will provide an overview of how all of these disciplines fit within the new field of pharmacogenetics.