No thesis topic has been selected at this point. My primary field of interest, however is pharmacogenetics. How drugs exert their effects, both good and bad, has always been a subject of great interest. How drugs exert their effects both good and bad, has always been a subject of great interest. I am particularly interested in individual variations in drug response. Since pharmacogenetics is the field most closely aligned with this interest, it is my field of choice. I believe that by using pharmacogenetics to delineate genetic polymorphisms, or rare variant alleles that increase susceptibility to adverse drug reactions, these toxic and adverse reactions will be greatly lessened in the future. Patients will be able to be genotyped before taking certain drugs, to pre-determine if they are risk for toxicity. If they are found to have the susceptibility polymorphism, than an alternate mode of therapy can be substituted. I believe that in the area of the Human Genome Project, this type of knowledge is even more attainable. Pharmacogenetics research will revolutionize drug therapy as we know it, making it less toxic and more individualized. It is for these reasons that pharmacogenetics is an extremely exciting field in which I plan to study.
| McNabb, Leilah D; Moore, Katharine W; Scena, Jaqueline E et al. (2005) Association analysis of CHMP1.5 genetic variation and bipolar disorder. Psychiatr Genet 15:211-4 |
