​​PERSONAL PHARMACOLOGY

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​Many studies have already shown that the efficacy, optimal dosage, and risk of side effects of drugs are influenced by genetic variants of drug targets. There is recent evidence that GPCRs show genetic variation in the human population and that these mutations can occur in structurally and functionally important regions, such as in ligand or effector protein (e.g. G protein, β-arrestin) binding sites (Hauser et al. 2018). Unfortunately, there is still a lack of information concerning the effect of already approved drugs on genetic variants of GPCRs.
We aim to contribute to advances in personalized medicine by experimentally testing which genetic GPCR variants lead to altered drug responses.

Figure 1. A - Upon treating patients with GPCR targeting FDA-approved drugs most of the population exhibits the desired drug effect. However, some patients with genetic variants of GPCR may have an altered drug response. For these individuals, a more personal treatment (B) will be required to achieve the same drug response. Understanding the genetic variation of GPCRs and the implication of specific mutations on the function of these proteins is vital. The figure was generated using BioRender.com.