Public Health Pharmacogenomics

Genomic medicine aims to exploit an individual's genomic profile to support the clinical decision-making process and to individualize drug treatment modalities. Pharmacogenomics plays a pivotal role in genomic medicine aiming to delineate drug efficacy and toxicity with the underlying genomic composition in genes involved in the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drug regimens. Although there have been major leaps in pharmacogenomics research, facilitated by the genomic technology revolution, the pace of these discoveries has not met with reciprocal advances in the translation of these findings into the clinic, resulting in the personalization of conventional therapeutic interventions. To this end, there are often significant barriers that hamper the smooth incorporation of pharmacogenomics research findings into the daily medical practice, which have to do more with disciplines related to public health genomics than with pharmacogenomics research itself. This special topicissue entitled 'Public Health Pharmacogenomics' is a collection of timely contributions of perspectives and original articles that touch upon pharmacogenomics in relation to public health genomics disciplines, namely ethics in genomics, economic evaluation in genomic medicine, genome informatics and knowledge bases, as well as the involvement and genetics education of the various stakeholders in the field of pharmacogenomics.