What You Need To Know About Personalized Medicines

Personalized medicines provide the physicians an effective tool

, which is the human genome to treat illnesses based on the patient's DNA or genetic makeup. The application of genomics in pharmacology is called pharmacogenomics. Scientists involved in this research investigate the link between pharmacological properties and the genomic variations.

Based on history, statistics are what drives the practice of medicine. To demonstrate, patients would want to be cured as a statistic than an individual because you believe you would likely get well being treated as a statistics. For instance, if you have been diagnosed to have a high blood pressure, and according to a research, 98% of patients with high blood pressure responded well to medication A than to medication B.

There is a possibility however that you may belong to a very small group of people who need medication B, while it is less likely that you need medication A. Because there is no effective method to determine whether you belong to a minority or majority group, you would likely take medication A.

The traditional approach of treating an illness has placed patients to high risks of developing adverse reactions and side effects such as allergic reaction, bone marrow suppression, heart attack, liver failure, and many more. Researchers have long sought for the methodology that would not only match the drug to a patient, but also to determine the risks of diseases even before their symptoms manifest.

The Human Genome Project provided the human genetic code, which serves as the foundation of personalized medicine. The Human Genome Project began in late 1989 and was completed in 2003. The completion of the project paved the way for modern medicine. With the Human Genome Project, researchers had successfully mapped and sequenced the DNA, which in turn, enable them to identify the genetic variations that ascertain how people metabolize drugs.

According to scientists, people have different ways and capacity of metabolizing drugs, hence, they have different toxicological and pharmacological responses to drugs. The differences are mainly due to the genetic variations present in every human body. Because of such genetic variations, there is no one size fits all medicine. Even the diseases that men develop are different from the illnesses common among women. This is also true in their way of responding to drugs.

With the completion of the Human Genome Project, scientists can predict the ability of a patient to metabolize a drug based on his genetic profile. This is done by isolating the specific gene involved in drug metabolism. To make personalized medicine possible, a patient should first take the genetic testing. The results of the test will enable researchers to determine which drug may best work for a certain patient as based on what constitute his DNA.

Large-scale clinical trials may no longer be necessary as drugs will be tested on patients to find out whether they have the appropriate genetic profile. The likelihood of developing serious adverse reactions will be mitigated with personalized medicine. As an example, the drug that was recalled due to the kidney failure it caused in 30% of the patients can now be used by 70% who are not at risk of developing kidney failure.

Indeed, the future of medicine will be personalized, and patients can now be assured of safe and more effective treatments.

by: Charles Godbout

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