What is pharmacogenomics? Pharmacogenomics looks at how your DNA affects how you respond to medications. Pharmacogenomics is an important part of precision medicine and can help your physicians be more proactive about the drugs they prescribe to each patient. Your DNA can affect multiple steps of the drug metabolism (drug breakdown) pathway including drug receptors, drug uptake and drug breakdown. Let’s get into a bit more detail about how this works! Drug Receptors. There are some medications that need to bind to receptors that are found on the outsides of your cells in order to trigger a response. Your DNA can affect the efficacy or ability of your cellular drug receptors to transmit signals which will affect how your body reacts to that medication. Drug Transporters. There are some medications that don’t need cell surface receptors but instead are absorbed directly into the cell through a drug transporter protein. Your DNA can affect how effective your transport proteins are at allowing medication to pass into the cell. Drug Breakdown. Once the drug has been taken into the cell, either through receptors or directly, your cell then has to break down or get rid of the medication. Your DNA also plays…
