“We have to bring “genome-drug” interactions to (physicians’) attention just as we currently bring “drug-drug” interactions to their attention.”
Adverse drug events account for over 700,000 deaths each year, and nearly 30% of these are attributed to interactions of drug combinations. Public databases curate hundreds of thousands of gene variants linked to disease risks every year. Mining these diverse sources could help us learn how genetic variations, drug targets and clinical parameters come together to influence human health. Using computational tools to utilize this wealth of scientific data effectively is something we’ve discussed on the blog earlier as well.
Beginning at the “intersection of molecular biology and medical informatics” over ten years ago, Russ Altman is the founder of PharmGKB (PharmacoGenomics Knowledge Base), a database that curates and disseminates information about gene-drug-disease relationships. The professor of bio-engineering, genetics and medicine at Stanford University is also on the Scientific Advisory Board at NextBio, and spoke to us about genomics and the future of medicine.
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