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He will also be able to tell you a lot more about other risks that some of your genes represent for you. For example; if you have other polymorphisms that predispose you to Alzheimer´s disease, or myocardial infarction (MI); if you can or not benefit from gene therapy, etc. Based on the possibilities of doing something about those other risks, you can decide whether you want to know more about their implications. As you realize, there is a privacy issue here since these tests contain very specific information about your genetic predisposition towards certain diseases. Sooner or later, legislation should be passed to decide who is the owner of such information. In my opinion it should be yours only.
It depends on how much is known about the disease. For some diseases the future is now, while for others it could take years. How many years, we cannot tell at this moment. To develop personalized medicines, the drug companies have two approaches. One is based on the symptoms of the diseases and the other on the true or molecular cause of the disease. The first one should take less time than the second. The approach based on the symptoms can be carried out in two ways. Lets keep talking about hypertension (HT). The drug company could ask doctors (including yours) all over the country for a list of those patients that respond well to one particular antihypertensive drug and a list of those for whom the drug is innocuous or has side effects. The company will then ask, all the persons in both lists, either directly or through their doctors, if they want to participate in a genetic test. Those that accept will be asked for a sample of blood or saliva, and their DNA will be analyzed looking for those gene variants that have already been associated with HT. If they find one that is common to most of the people that respond well to the drug and that is not found in the other list they can design an oligonucleotide to detect the gene variant and stick it into a biochip. They can use the same approach to design oligonucleotides to detect the genotypes of those patients for which the drug either does not work of has side effects. In both cases the microchip will allow them to classify patients according to their response to the drug.
The copyright of the article PHARMACOGENOMICS: MEDICINES TAILORED JUST FOR YOU - Page 2 in Molecular Biology/Medicine is owned by Juan C. Mendible. Permission to republish PHARMACOGENOMICS: MEDICINES TAILORED JUST FOR YOU - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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