Future Directions for Pharmacogenetics

The discipline of pharmacogenetics will continue to expand as scientific and clinical investigations increase our understanding of genetic variabilities in drug metabolism and response. These research efforts will include determination of molecular mechanisms for the different polymorphisms and evaluation of their clinical significance. The availability of molecular methodologies such as restriction fragment length polymorphisms analysis, polymerase chain reaction, and expression of cDNAs in cell cultures will further the investigative work in detection of normal and mutant alleles, identification of new substrates for different polymorphic metabolizing enzymes, and evaluation of mechanisms of individual susceptibility to biological disorders. Other areas such as the role of pharmacogenetics in drug development and regulatory control, in evaluation of potential drug-drug interactions, ethnic variation in polymorphic metabolism, and response, also need to be evaluated.