How can I implement pharmacogenomics to be integrated into current healthcare systems and improve personal medicine and treatments?

I have always been interested in medical research and patient treatment, so my essential question represents a blend of those two subjects. At AEON Global Health, I was introduced to a pharmacogenetics, a field of study that compares patient DNA to referenced genetic sequences known to cause issues in drug metabolizing. A pharmacogenetic profile may predict a certain patient will over or under metabolize a particular drug due to unique variants in their DNA. Pharmacogenomics is an extremely new area of interest to medical researchers who are just now beginning to understand its implications, but ever since learning about the science, I wanted to know if hospitals and doctors can use a person’s genetic profile to influence their decisions when prescribing drugs. Many terminally sick patients take a carefully crafted cocktail of drugs that are specially chosen not to adversely react with one another, but if a patient metabolizes one of these volatile drugs too slowly due to their genetics, the build up could cause extreme reactions.

I selected this question because utilizing the relatively new science of pharmacogenomics within hospitals and doctor’s offices could save someone’s life. If used correctly and to its fullest capacity, patient profiles on pharmacogenetics could revolutionize current healthcare facilities by completely personalizing what medicine is used to treat who and for what. No longer would patients with cancer have to try numerous and dangerous different combinations of drugs just to make sure they all worked effectively within the patient, the profile would be able to eliminate most of those mistakes and help catch future mistakes.

The sheer unknown and raw potential for implications of pharmacogenomics excites me, and I cannot wait to explore the possibilities for improvement in personal medicine. This question represents my desire to learn more about the tests I perform at my internship and guides my study further into the future.