Handbook of Pharmacogenomics and Stratified Medicine

Handbook of Pharmacogenomics and Stratified Medicine. Edited by S. Padmanabhan. 2014, pp. 1093, Eur 180.00, ISBN: 978-0-12-386882-4. Academic Press / Elsevier, London, UK.

The Handbook of Pharmacogenomics and Stratified Medicine is a comprehensive resource to understand this rapidly advancing field aiming to deliver the right drug at the right dose to the right patient at the right time. This book is designed to provide a detailed, but accessible review of the entire field from basic principles to applications in various diseases. The chapters are written by international experts to allow readers from a wide variety of backgrounds, clinical and non-clinical (basic geneticists, pharmacologists, clinicians, trialists, industry personnel, ethicists) to understand the principles underpinning the progress in this area, the successes, failures and the challenges ahead. To be accessible to the widest range of readers, the clinical application section introduces the disease process and existing therapies followed by specific pharmacogenomics and stratified medicine details.

Medicine is the cornerstone of modern therapeutics prescribed on the basis that its benefit should outweigh risk. It is well known that people respond differently to medications and in many cases the risk-benefit ratio for a particular drug may be a gray area. The last decade has seen a revolution in genomics both in terms of technological innovation and discovering genetic markers associated with disease. In parallel there has been steady progress in trying to make medicines safer and tailored to the individual.

This has occurred across the whole spectrum of medicine, some more than others. In addition there is burgeoning interest from the pharmaceutical industry to leverage pharmacogenomics and stratification for more effective and efficient clinical drug development.