Russ Altman discusses how genetics can impact your response to prescription drugs

At TedxStanford last month, Stanford bioengineer and geneticist Russ Altman, MD, PhD, discussed the role genetics play in a person’s response to prescription drugs, such as codeine. As he explains in the above talk, not everyone responds to pharmaceuticals the same way: Some process the medications more slowly, others have no response to the drugs and another group rapidly metabolizes them.

Altman and colleagues are developing the Pharmacogenomics Knowledge Base to provide clinicians and researchers with a comprehensive resource about the impact of genetic variation on drug response. In addition, Stanford researchers have joined the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium to write and publish guidelines for physicians on how to use patients’ genetic information to determine their drug response. Altman hopes that the database combined with the guidelines will one day make personalized prescriptions a reality.

Previously: TedxStanford features talks on neural prosthetics, bioinformatics, Researchers mine Internet search data to identify unreported side effects of drugs and Thousands of previously unknown drug side effects and interactions identified by Stanford study