INTRO TO PHARMACOGENOMICS

Question 1

What are the differences between pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics?

Answer 1

genetics: looks ar one or a few genes and variants, uses PCR and next gen sequencing, has high accuracy and costs $100s per gene.
Genomics: looks at full genome, uses microarrays and next ten sequencing, variable accuracy and costs cents per gene.

Question 2

Describe microarrays.

Answer 2

Target DNA, RNA, protein or other molecules in patient samples captured by probes on the array.
Read 5 million+ gene variants for 30+ people in hours to 2 days for very little cost.
Measure essentially all variants with known disease or pharmacogenomic effects (relatively small proportion of the total number of possible gene variants).

Question 3

Describe next gen sequencing.

Answer 3

emerging DNA sequencing technology.
Aim is to determine a persons entire genome.
Fast (<$1000 per sample).

Question 4

Describe nanopore strand sequencing.

Answer 4

application of a potential across a membrane, resulting in current flowing through the aperture of a protein nano pore chip.
Nucleotides are passed through the pore, with each disrupting current to a different extent, allowing nucleotides to be identified based on chafe in current. In strand sequencing, an entire template is sequenced continuously as it passes through the nano pore, without the need for nucleotide cleavage.