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Is Pharmacogenomics For Real?

So maybe the crowd (such as it is) can help me with this one. I've been racking my brain and scouring Google to come up with some good examples - hell, any examples - of pharmacogenomics in practice, right now. I mean, this is the supposed Holy Grail of personalized medicine - that drugs will be tailored to our genomes - and there has been a good 20 years research. But I can only find two examples: Herceptin, which is used in breast cancer patients whose cancer is caused by excessive protein from the HER2 gene; and warfarin, a blood-thinning drug used for patients recovering from heart attack or major surgery - there's now a screening test for those with certain gene that causes excess bleeding, raising the possibility of serious side effects (stroke, etc). But really, that's it? I mean it's 2007, and this is the big payoff of personalized medicine, which we've been hearing about for a decade - two lousy drugs?

Tell me if I'm wrong (I sure hope I am...)

Thomas Goetz5 Comments