Keziah Ann Babu, Manjula Devi AS

¹Pharm. D Intern, College of Pharmacy- Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Paramedical Sciences, Coimbatore, E-mail: keziahannbabu@gmail.com; Phone: +918489698144

²M.Pharm, Ph.D, Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, College of Pharmacy-Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Paramedical Sciences, Coimbatore, E-mail: hari1509@gmail.com; Phone: +919443776673

Correspondence: Keziah Ann Babu, Pharm. D Intern, College of Pharmacy- Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Paramedical Sciences, Coimbatore, E-mail: keziahannbabu@gmail.com; Phone: +918489698144

Citation: Keziah AB, Manjula DAS (2021) The Status QUO of Pharmacogenomic Education in Pharma Curriculum. J Pharm Exper Med, 1(1); 1-4

Copyright: © 2021, Keziah Ann Babu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Abstract

This paper aims to bring out the significance of pharmacogenomics, the barriers seen in pharmacogenomic education and possible strategies to uplift pharmacogenomic education in pharma curriculum. Pharmacogenomics is an advanced field of drug therapy which is based on genetic data. It has wide potential in the future and is being increasingly studied. Personalized therapy based on genetic information of patients is the key concept of pharmacogenomics. Pharmacists have an important role to play in utilizing genomic data in optimizing patient’s therapy. For this, effective training and education is required. The present pharma curriculum is sufficient to introduce the concept of pharmacogenomics to pharmacy students but is often found to be insufficient in developing practical and clinical decision-making skills in them. Hence, the future of pharmacogenomic education demands, developing and testing new educational strategies to enhance the skills of pharmacists in the coming years.

Keywords: Pharmacogenomics, Pharmacy curriculum, Pharmacy education, Precision medicine, Research, Strategies

1. Introduction

The field of Pharmacogenetics incorporates data on human genetics into the science of pharmacology. Pharmacogenomics, on the other hand, involves a combination of gene expression profiling, proteomics, and bioinformatics. The former is used to describe the study of genes involved in drug metabolism, while the latter is a broader field that describes the study of the human genome that may help determine drug response in individuals (Pirmohamed, 2001).

Both these fields are more or less overlapping and are of great capability for utilization in the practice of precision medicine.(Gurwitz, et al., 2005). Pharmacogenomics (PGx) is a rapidly evolving area, used to identify the safe and most effective treatment for patients. With the completion of the Human Genome Project, research in PGx has evolved. Pharmacogenetic studies use data on genetic polymorphisms to identify effects of genetic variation on individual patient drug response and/or toxicity (Kisor, Smith, & Grace, n.d.). Certain observations were already made five to six decades ago, that diversity in responses of some drugs are attributable to genetic varaiation (Meyer, 2004). These clinical genomic information can be used in clinical laboratories, incorporated into electronic health records, and also can be utilized to alter drug therapy for specific individuals (Weinshilboum & Wang, 2017).

Pharmacogenomics, can allow for maximization of therapeutic benefits of drugs to patients as it provides a clearer picture of the patient’s disease and thereby can help tailor use of medications in individuals. With advances such as these in pharmacotherapy, pharmacists are required to develop skills in recommending therapeutic regimen to physicians for specific patients (Marcinak, Paris, & Kinney, 2018). Implementation of pharmacogenomics into the practice of medicine allows provision of highly specific treatment for each individual patient thereby resulting in large scale reduction in the incidence of adverse events (Gurwitz, et al., 2005). The basis of inter individual variability in drug response depends on multiple factors, such as genomics, epigenomics, environment factors and patient specific characteristics, such as gender, age, concomitant drug therapy etc (Schwab & Schaeffeler, 2012).

Pharmacists also can take part in this by combining the data on patients’ genetic makeup, with their knowledge of a drug’s pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics to provide optimal therapeutic plan for individuals (Marcinak, et al., 2018). The use of pharmacogenetic testing can help predict individual drug dose, predict absence of response to a drug and identify individuals at serious risk of toxicity, if a drug is prescribed (Daly, 2017).

Certain individuals metabolize certain drugs much slower or much faster than normal due to genetic polymorphism in cytochrome P450 gene. For example, ‘CYP2D6 poor or ultra-rapid metabolizers’ metabolize many antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs at very slow or too rapid rates, respectively. ‘CYP2D6 poor metabolizers’ are at an elevated risk for ADR, while ‘CYP2D6 ultra-rapid metabolizers’ often do not receive the desired therapeutic outcome due to reduced drug efficacy. Therefore, it is essential to identify individuals who are susceptible in order to reduce the incredibly high current ADR rates, which have become a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide (Gurwitz, et al., 2005). 

New findings in pharmacogenomics can help identify the interaction of drugs with receptor binding site, predict the absorption, distribution of drugs and elimination of the drugs from the body (T P, 2009).