Pharmacogenetics is becoming increasingly relevant in the diagnosis, treatment, and recovery of cancer patients. A major problem facing oncologists is the outstanding varied efficacy of treatment. Promising advances in pharmacogenetics have allowed the development of effective agents which will enable personalized cancer chemotherapy to become routine for the clinical practice. Written by experts in the field and combining information that is unable to be found in a single source volume, Pharmacogenetics of Breast Cancer: combines a complete overview of pharmacogenetics and how it relates to breast oncology for diagnosis, treatment, and the recovery of patients using an individualized therapy model is the first single source reference demonstrating the application of pharmacogenetics in the care of breast cancer patients enables physicians a coherent interpretation of the emerging science of pharmacogenetics, aiding them to incorporate individual therapies in their own practice gives practical guidance on various forms of specimen collection, tissue selection, and handling procedures

Genomics and Pharmacogenomics in Anticancer Drug Development and Clinical Response provides the most comprehensive body of knowledge available on the role of genetic and genomic variation in the individualization of drug therapies in cancer patients. As a consequence of the intrinsic chromosomal and genetic instability of the tumor genome, it is generally believed that tailoring of chemotherapy in cancer - tients might be achieved by molecular analysis of patient tumor DNA. In addition, to reduce the toxicity risk of patients, the tumor DNA information should be in- grated with the available data on polymorphic drug-metabolizing enzyme and tra- porter genes mediating the exposure of patients to active drugs and/or their active metabolites. The chapters of this book clearly show how DNA information from both the host (germline) and the tumor should be taken into account for rational selection of drug therapies in cancer patients, an aspect that received little attention, despite its importance. The availability of new molecular approaches to the selection of drug therapy is an emerging need, because the traditional approach based on the evaluation of patient and tumor characteristics is clearly far from optimal. Many treated patients do not experience signi?cant bene?ts from the treatment, while they often experience moderate to severe toxicities. In addition, the development and clinical use of novel molecularly targeted agents (alone or in combination with classical cytotoxic therapy) requires the und- standing of the molecular features of the tumors and the identi?cation of tumor markers of response.

This book discusses the role of genetic polymorphism in susceptibility to cancers. The book explores the understanding of differences between the genetic polymorphisms and mutations.It reviews the mechanisms underlying the effect of polymorphism in genes encoding proteins that play an essential role in metabolism, signal transduction, cell cycle, and DNA repair mechanisms. Further, it investigates various techniques that are used for analyzing the genetic polymorphisms. The book contains many chapters which summarize the importance of genetic information obtained from polymorphism-based pharmaco-genetic tests to predict better drug response and life-threatening adverse reactions to chemotherapeutic agents, help in understanding of the impact of SNPs on gene function, and gives overview of the different SNP databases for examination. This book, therefore, serves as an essential guidebook for independent researchers as well as institutions working in this specialised field.

This book proposes immunogenomics, or immunopharmacogenomics, as the next-generation big science to uncover the role that the immune system plays in the pathogenesis of many diseases, by summarizing the importance of the deep sequencing of T-cell and B-cell receptors. Immunogenomics/immunopharmacogenomics, a genetic characterization of the immune system made possible by next-generation sequencing (NGS), will be important for the further understanding of the pathogenesis of various disease conditions. Abnormal immune responses in the body lead to development of autoimmune diseases and food allergies. Rejection of recipient cells and tissues, as well as severe immune reactions to donor cells, is also the result of uncontrolled immune responses in the recipient body. There have been many reports indicating that activated immune responses caused by the interaction of drugs and HLA are present in drug-induced skin hypersensitivity and liver toxicity. The importance of the host immune responses has been recognized in cancer treatments, not only for immunotherapy but also for cytotoxic agents and molecular targeted drugs. Hence, characterization of the T-cell receptor and B-cell receptor repertoire by means of NGS deep sequencing will ultimately make possible the identification of the molecular mechanisms that underlie various diseases and drug responses. In addition, this approach may contribute to the identification of antigens associated with the onset or progression of autoimmune diseases as well as food allergies. Although the germline alterations and somatic mutations have been extensively analyzed, changes or alterations of the immune responses during the course of various disease conditions or during various treatments have not been analyzed. It is also clear that computational analyses to draw meaningful inferences of functional recognition receptors on the immune cells remain a huge challenge.

Molecular medicine is an applied science focused on human genes/transcripts, proteins, metabolites, and metabolic networks that describes molecular and cellular processes of health and disease onset and progression. Molecular medicine-based integrative identification and characterization of biomarker targets and their clinical translations is essential to explain/decipher the mechanism(s) underlying physiological pathways and pathological conditions, and acquire cell-targeted early interventional and therapeutic strategies in the context of precision medicine and public health. Principally, Molecular Medicine provides an overview of the latest headlines/developments of systems and molecular medicine, highlighting the emerging high-throughput technologies, promising potential applications, and progress in biomedical research and development strategies.

A pioneering work that focuses on the unique diversity of African genetics, offering insights into human biology and genetic approaches.

Adjuvant treatment is administered prior to or as follow up to surgical procedures for breast cancer. Proven success in using medical therapies allowing for breast conserving procedures or reducing risk of occurrence. Although there has been much progress towards a cure, including the introduction of new targeted therapies, metastasizing cancer remains highly incurable.

Pharmacogenomics is one of the emerging approaches to precision medicine, tailoring drug selection and dosing to the patient's genetic features. In recent years, several pharmacogenetic guidelines have been published by international scientific consortia, but the uptake in clinical practice is still poor. Many coordinated international efforts are ongoing in order to overcome the existing barriers to pharmacogenomic implementation. On the other hand, existing validated pharmacogenomic markers can explain only a minor part of the observed clinical variability in the therapeutic outcome. New investigational approaches are warranted, including a study of the pharmacogenomic role of the immune system genetics and of previously neglected rare genetic variants, reported to account for a large part of inter-individual variability in drug metabolism. In this book, we have collected a series of articles covering many aspects of pharmacogenomics. These include clinical implementation of pharmacogenomics in clinical practice, development of tools or infrastructures to support this process, research of new pharmacogenomics markers to increase drug efficacy and safety, and the impact of rare genetic variants in pharmacogenomics.

Being a complex disease that affects millions of people world over, cancer research has assumed great significance. Translational cancer research transforms scientific discoveries in the laboratory into clinical application to reduce incidence of cancer, morbidity and mortality. On the other hand, personalized medicine in cancer is the concept that selection of a treatment should be tailored according to the individual patient’s specific genomic characteristics, including mutations, chromosomal aberrations, protein interactions, and SNPs, and even more, taking into account the inmume system, the metabolism and maybe in the next future also the microbiome.

The study of pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics focuses on how our genes and complex gene systems influence our response to drugs. Recent progress in clinical therapeutics has led to the discovery of new biomarkers that make it technically easier to identify groups of patients which are more or less likely to respond to individual therapies. The aim is to improve personalised medicine - not simply to prescribe the right medicine, but to deliver the right drug at the right dose at the right time. This textbook brings together leading experts to discuss the latest information on how human genetics impacts drug response phenotypes. It presents not only the basic principles of pharmacogenetics, but also clinically valuable examples that cover a broad range of specialties and therapeutic areas. This textbook is an invaluable introduction to pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics for health care professionals, medical students, pharmacy students, graduate students and researchers in the biosciences.