Pharmacogenetic Perspectives: Genes, Drugs and Disease

Much medical progress has ensued from identification of disease-associated environmental factors. Recent advances emerged from recognition that individuals differ markedly in their susceptibility to environmental injury and that specific genetic factors can increase or decrease this risk. Although devoted to only one such environmental agent, drugs, this review begins with a brief consideration of several parallel discoveries involving other gene-environment interactions that produce disease in some subjects. In addition to drugs, environmental factors whose effects on health can be modulated by genetic constitution include infections, dietary constituents, cigarette smoking, ethanol consumption and industrial chemicals.