A saliva swab collected from a patient’s cheek can tell doctors what kinds of drugs will work best for a patient. It's the promise of pharmacogenomics, the science behind matching a patient's genetic profile with right medicine—and avoiding drugs that could actually harm them.
The new approach to genetics, medicine, and how the two interact have to do with the variety enzymes each person produces and how those enzymes interact with the drug. If a patient doesn’t produce an enzyme that breaks down a specific medication, the drug simply won't work as intended. Armed with a patient's genetic information, doctors can pursue another prescription, or even another treatment.
Dr. Robert Pollack is a Fort Myers psychiatrist who is using genomics to help patients find the right psychotropic medication more quickly, saving them time, money, and frustration. A specialist in post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, he joins Gulf Coast Live to talk about how he used genomics in the wake of the Pulse Night Club shooting one year ago to help first responders, victims, and witnesses quickly get the help they would need.
Also joining the program is Dr. Dan Handley with the Clinical and Translational Genome Research Institute, discussing studies still being done with other pharmaceuticals, like targeted cancer therapies, based on a person’s genetic fingerprint.
