Challenges in pharmacogenetics

Abstract

The attempt to optimize drug treatment of patients by using evidenced-based medicine considering individual physiological and disease-related conditions is standard of modern medicine. Pharmacogenetics (PGx) has contributed to individualization considering hereditary genetic information; however, increasingly, pharmacogenomics is becoming essential, particularly in relation to modern oncology. New technologies such as next-generation sequencing and rapid development of computational and information sciences will help to better elucidate the consequences of genetic variation, considering also epigenetics and gene-environmental interactions and their translation into clinically relevant individual phenotypes. This review highlights the current challenging and most promising examples of PGx.