Definition of Pharmacogenomics

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Pharmacogenomics: The study of how variations in the human genome affect the response to medications. The older term "pharmacogenetics" was created from the words "pharmacology" and "genetics" to indicate the intersection of pharmaceuticals and genetics. The sequencing of the human genome and the introduction of new technologies have made it possible to analyze multiple genes simultaneously, rather than one at a time. The newer term "pharmacogenomics" describes such large-scale, often genomewide approaches.

Pharmacogenomics may permit drugs to be tailor-made for individuals and adapted to each person's own genetic makeup. Environment, diet, age, lifestyle, and state of health all can influence a person's response to medicines, but understanding an individual's genetic makeup is thought to be the key to creating personalized drugs with greater efficacy and safety.

Pharmacogenomics combines traditional pharmaceutical sciences such as biochemistry with annotated knowledge of genes, proteins, and single nucleotide polymorphisms.

See also: Nutrigenomics.

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