How Your Genes Affect Your Response to Medication

Join us and Dr. Latha Palaniappan to discuss how our genes affect our responses to medication

Free and open to the community

There are known differences in drug metabolism, outcomes, and side effects across racial and ethnic groups, and not everyone responds to medications in the same way. A medicine that works well for others may not work well for you, resulting in significant side effects. In the US, adverse drug reactions cause a great number of hospitalizations and are a leading cause of death in hospitalized patients. Pharmacogenomics, or individualized drug therapy, can help us prevent dangerous drug reactions by pre-identifying at-risk patients. Pharmacogenomics analyses can study your unique genetic profile to determine which medications are likely to help you or harm you, before you even take them. Through this avenue of precision health, we can tailor medical care to every individual, and provide every patient with the right medication at the right dosage at the right time.