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The Advantages and Challenges of Diversity in Pharmacogenomics: Can Minority Populations Bring Us Closer to Implementation?
Author(s) -
Zhang Honghong,
De Tanima,
Zhong Yizhen,
Perera Minoli A.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
clinical pharmacology and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.941
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1532-6535
pISSN - 0009-9236
DOI - 10.1002/cpt.1491
Subject(s) - pharmacogenomics , confounding , precision medicine , genetic variation , disease , genome wide association study , diversity (politics) , drug response , pharmacogenetics , population , genetic diversity , 1000 genomes project , medicine , biology , evolutionary biology , bioinformatics , genetics , drug , environmental health , single nucleotide polymorphism , pharmacology , genotype , political science , pathology , gene , law
Health disparities exist among minorities in the United States, with differences seen in disease prevalence, mortality, and responses to medications. These differences are multifactorial with genetic variation explaining a portion of this variability. Pharmacogenomics aims to find the effect of genetic variations on drug response, with the goal of optimizing drug therapy and development. Although genome‐wide association studies have been useful in unbiasedly surveying the genome for genetic drivers of clinically relevant phenotypes, most of these studies have been conducted in mainly participants of European and Asian descent, contributing to a growing health disparity in precision medicine. Diversity is important to pharmacogenomic studies, and there may be real advantages to the use of these complex genomes in pharmacogenomics. In this review we will outline some of the advantages and confounders of pharmacogenomics in minorities, describe the role of genetic variation in pharmacologic pathways, and highlight a number of population‐specific findings.