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Pharmacogenomics: will the promise be fulfilled?

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Abstract

Tools such as genome resequencing and genome-wide association studies have recently been used to uncover a number of variants that affect drug toxicity and efficacy, as well as potential drug targets. But how much closer are we to incorporating pharmacogenomics into routine clinical practice? Five experts discuss how far we have come, and highlight the technological, informatics, educational and practical obstacles that stand in the way of realizing genome-driven medicine.

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Acknowledgements

H.K.K.'s research is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (GANI_MED) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB TR 19).

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Competing interests

D.R. is a consultant for Novartis, Merck and Sanofi-Aventis in antiarrhythmic actions. He is also a consultant for Daiichii Sankyo in cardiovascular pharmacology. He receives royalties from Clinical Data, Inc., for the discovery of a potassium channel gene variant as a predictor of drug-induced arrhythmia.

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Russ B. Altman's homepage

Catherine A. McCarty's homepage

Dan Roden's homepage

International Serious Adverse Events Consortium

Marshfield Clinic Personalized Medicine Research Project

PharmGKB

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Progress Report on Electronic Health Records in US hospitals

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Altman, R., Kroemer, H., McCarty, C. et al. Pharmacogenomics: will the promise be fulfilled?. Nat Rev Genet 12, 69–73 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2920

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