Pharmacogenetics and stratified healthcare (for CPPD)

Pharmacogenomics is playing a key role in our health care system. Pharmacogenomics and stratified health care ensure that healthcare professionals tailor the 'right treatment, for the right person, at the right time’ and is a fast developing area. This module provides a comprehensive overview of the analytical strategies and techniques used in pharmacogenomics and explore some of the challenges and limitations in this field (availability of patient material for studies of adverse drug reactions which tend to be rare, allelic heterogeneity between different ethnic groups, patient compliance etc.). Biomarkers are the predictive tools for optimising drug response and preventing adverse drug reactions thus this module will also provide an overview of the different type of genomic biomarkers currently in use or emerging.

This module describes the complexity of pharmacogenomics and the effect of medication on individuals based on their genetic make-up i.e. tailoring drug treatment to improve patient response and techniques to stratify patients at risk of adverse drug reactions. It uses examples of known validated pharmacogenomic tests relevant to the use of drug treatments and also use the expertise provided by the major clinical- and academic- industrial research cluster in biomedical science that is developing locally.

The module provides a focus to develop interactions with industrial partners and academic groups developing research programs in stratified medicine across a broad range of diseases.