AMS and PGx
Over the next 20 years, pharmacy teams will be key in helping patients get the most from their medicines using genomics.
How can genomics help manage infection?
Genomics has rapidly developed to help diagnose or classify disease, track infectious disease outbreaks and to predict response, or adverse response, to medicines. Dr Hayley Wickens shares some ways that pharmacogenomics (PGx) is being used today, and how it can help in the future.
Dr Hayley Wickens
Consultant Pharmacist Genomic Medicine, Central and South Genomic Medicine Service Alliance
Download Dr Wickens' presentation on Genomics and Pharmacy and AMS
Possible applications in treatment of infection
Genomics has the potential to help us predict the risk of allergy to, or toxicity from, antimicrobials. For example, it's possible to check for a variation in mitochondrial DNA that predisposes patients to ototoxicity with aminoglycosides, which is important in patients with long-term conditions predisposing them to gram-negative infection, and likely to receive these antimicrobials in the medium to long term.
Whole genome sequencing has been in use for some years to predict antimicrobial susceptibility in tuberculosis, reducing the turnaround time from 4–6 weeks to less than a week and enabling tailored therapy to be prescribed earlier for patients.
PGx can predict the way in which individuals metabolise drugs, and while these tests are not in common clinical use yet, this could add to our understanding of antimicrobial pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, which is particularly important when treating infection.
Trials are underway for rapid identification of pathogens using genomics, which could be particularly useful in sepsis.
Find out more about genomics