The Hindu : 'Genetics has helped researchers be more precise'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 14, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

'Genetics has helped researchers be more precise'

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD Feb. 13. Out of a sample of ten patients with a similar disease who are prescribed the same drug, only three respond positively to the treatment, three do not follow the treatment properly, while three others show no effects. One person out of this ten actually shows negative effects of the drug.

This is primarily due to the different genetic make up of individuals and how this reacts to the organic compounds which are contained in the drug. It may be possible to create drugs which can be prescribed based on each individual's genetic profile and thus increase the effectiveness of drugs manifold.

This is the future of drug development but we may have to wait as long as 20 years before it descends from science fiction to reality, said Peter Goodfellow, senior vice president, Discovery Research, GlaxoSmithKline UK, while delivering a lecture on "Genes, Genomes and Drugs'' here on Thursday. Dr. Goodfellow, who is credited with discovering the male selection gene SRY and is one of the pioneering scientists in genetics in Britain, is visiting India as part of the British Council's celebration of 50 years of the discovery of the genetic structure in Britain.

In his talk, Dr. Goodfellow traced the evolution of genetics over the past five decades and highlighted how it had impacted on drug discovery research. Not only had it reduced the time it takes to transform an idea to actual drug in the market, it has also enabled drugs to be more precise. Giving an example, he said that what is commonly called deafness has more than 30 different genetic causes, apart from environmental ones. Genetics has now enabled researchers to be more precise with respect to both the disease and its cure.

Dr. Goodfellow remarked jokingly that a few generations from now people will look back with incredulity at our medical practices which uses surgery, "rearranging anatomy with a sufficiently sharp knife,'' for "curing'' diseases!

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