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Washington, D.C. — Georgetown researcher David A. Flockhart, M.D., Ph.D., has received a $1.3 million grant for the first year of a five-year effort to study the role genetic makeup plays in how medicines work in particular patients, the National Institutes of Health announced today.
Dr. Flockhart’s project is one of nine NIH-funded projects nationwide that are part of a research effort to understand "pharmacogenetics," or how genes determine the way medicines work, as well as what side effects a patient might be prone to developing.
Dr. Flockhart’s research will examine if and how patients’ genetic differences can explain the variable responses to tamoxifen, a widely prescribed drug used for cancer treatment and prevention. Through these types of studies, Dr. Flockhart and other researchers ultimately hope to improve the use of tamoxifen and other drugs like it into a much more predictive science, so that side effects can be predicted and avoided, and drugs can be prescribed to the patients most likely to benefit from them.
"The idea is to take some of the guesswork out of prescribing tamoxifen and other specific estrogen receptor modulators so that we can help patients by targeting our therapy to those who will derive benefit, and doing everything possible to ensure that people are able to continue taking a life-saving medicine for as long as possible," said Dr. Flockhart.
Pharmacogenetics research focuses on linking the body's response to medicines with variations in particular genes. Many of these variations are expected to be "single-letter" differences, known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms or "SNPs." However, other genetic variations such as missing genes or even extra genes could affect a person’s reaction to a specific medicine.
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