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Pharmacogenomics: road to anticancer therapeutics nirvana?

Oncogene volume 22, pages 6621–6628 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Interindividual differences in the toxicity and response to anticancer therapies are currently observed for essentially all available treatment regimens. Such ‘unpredictable’ drug responses are particularly dangerous in the context of anticancer agents that have narrow therapeutic indices. Pharmacogenomics attempts to elucidate the inherited basis of interindividual differences in drug response, with the eventual goal of minimizing such variability through the use of ‘individualized’ treatments. There are several emerging examples of genetic polymorphisms of drug-metabolizing enzymes, DNA repair genes and drug targets that have been shown to influence the toxicity and efficacy of anticancer treatment. This review discusses the role of genetic variants of UGT1A1, TS and EGFR to exemplify the potential impact of phramacogenomics on the field of anticancer therapeutics.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Pharmacogenetics of Anticancer Agents Research (PAAR) Group (http://pharmacogenetics.org) by the NIH/NIGMS grant U01GM61393.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Apurva A Desai, Federico Innocenti & Mark J Ratain

  2. Committee on Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacogenomics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Federico Innocenti & Mark J Ratain

  3. Cancer Research Center, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Federico Innocenti & Mark J Ratain

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  1. Apurva A Desai
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Correspondence to Mark J Ratain.

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Desai, A., Innocenti, F. & Ratain, M. Pharmacogenomics: road to anticancer therapeutics nirvana?. Oncogene 22, 6621–6628 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1206958

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