Biography
Biography: David Cheng
Abstract
"These questions could be answered with a single sentence: pharmacogenetics. What is Pharmacogenetics? Is the science that studies the actions and interactions between drugs, in each individual, based on their genome. Knowing the genetic polymorphisms of a patient shows whether a drug will make the intended effect according to the dosage from clinical trials, or require more or less dose, or the drug should be avoided and seek a therapeutic alternative. In general, patients are poly medicated, however the effect of various drugs administered together may be different (produce ineffectiveness or toxicity), different to what would happen when administered alone. Sometimes, even if a person could take the drugs individually according to the genetics, the drugs themselves could inhibit or induce the other. To successfully apply pharmacogenetics and make a prescription safely and accurately, many parameters should be taken into account, such as drug-drug interactions, drug-lifestyle, inhibitions and inductions and dose variation according to patient studied genes. All this information can only be interpreted together, using a tool like g-Nomic® pharmacogenetics software, developed by EUGENOMIC. This easy to use tool, crosses information concerning drugs taken by the patient and his genes to give a personalized report with all necessary information: interactions between drugs, including drugs with lifestyle habits, inhibitions and inductions and dose variation according to the patient's genes. FDA, CIPC, DWG among others, already state recommended genes to study for a customized prescription, and give prescription algorithms. Applied pharmacogenetics can indeed avoid a lot emergency cases, safe lives and money. But to correctly apply pharmacogenetics, a tool is needed since there are too many variables to consider. "