Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine: Understanding Genetic Variations for Safer and Individualized Drug Therapy

Personalized medicine is a new area of medicine that focuses on how genetic differences affect individual response to drugs; called “pharmacogenomics.” However, traditional drug treatment involves a “one size fits all” approach that can lead to a lack of response to treatment or undesirable side effects from drugs because of variations in inter-individual response to drugs and drug metabolism. The present review summarizes some of the basic considerations of PG and its role in the safety, efficacy and personalization of pharmacotherapy. It shows genetic differences that are important for the metabolism of drugs, such as single nucleotide polymorphisms, insertions and deletions, and copy number variations, that may change the activity of drug-metabolizing enzymes, transporters, and pharmacological targets.