Personalized medicine and the future of pharmacy
Pharmacogenomic strategies to improve health outcomes will require pharmacists' participation
Jun 15, 2010
By: Barbara Hesselgrave
Drug Topics
June 25 marks the 10th anniversary of what many consider a benchmark event for personalized medicine. Ten years ago when President Clinton, joined by U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, announced the preliminary completion of a "rough draft" of the Human Genome Project (HGP), 3 billion base pairs of DNA had been mapped. While this was admittedly "only the first step in the full decoding of the genome," it was cause for much scientific excitement. With the advent of supercomputers and informatics to crunch the mind-boggling numbers, the HGP project was formally completed in 2003, two and a half years ahead of schedule, at a cost of $2.7 billion.
Since then, many new initiatives continue the work. Among them are the International HapMap Project (http://hapmap.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/), the NIH Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) (http://genome.ucsc.edu/ENCODE/), the Roadmap Epigenomics Program (http://www.roadmapepigenomics.org/), and more.
Both before and after the completion of the HGP in 2003, researchers worldwide, anticipating the development of specific targeted therapies, jumped at the task of investigating genetic sequences responsible for diseases. Their work has laid the groundwork for the day when patients will be treated on the basis of their unique genetic blueprints and the practice of medicine will be distinctly individualized and personalized.
During the same period, new biotech groups funded by eager venture capitalists arose seemingly almost overnight and often disappeared almost as quickly.
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Personalized medicine and the future of pharmacy - Pharmacogenomic strategies to improve health outcomes will require pharmacists' participation - Drug Topics
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