NICHD Director's Lecture Series: "Pharmacogenomics: Beyond Biomarkers"

January 2012 Lecture Features Pharmacogenomics Expert Dr. Richard Weinshilboum

Dr. Richard M. WeinshilboumDr. Richard M. Weinshilboum will initiate the 2012 NICHD Director’s Lecture Series with a lecture on Pharmacogenomics: Beyond Biomarkers. Dr. Weinshilboum is the Mary Lou and John H. Dasburg Professor for Cancer Genomics Research, the chair of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology, and a professor of Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He is also a principal investigator on several NIH grants, including a clinical pharmacology training grant that receives support from the NICHD. Dr. Weinshilboum’s research has focused on drugs used to treat breast cancer and on medications for depression.

Pharmacogenomics is the study of the role of genetic inheritance as it influences individual variability in drug responses. For example, just as genetic makeup varies from individual to individual, so too can the response to a drug vary from mild loss of drug efficacy in one individual to severe adverse reaction in another.

During this lecture, Dr. Weinshilboum will discuss these topics:

  • The origins of the field of pharmacogenomics in pharmacogenetic studies of single genes, including genes encoding drug metabolizing enzymes or drug transporters;
  • Examples of the use of genome-wide techniques to pursue drug response phenotypes; and
  • Pharmacogenomics as a discovery science that is illuminating novel biology and novel mechanisms of drug response.

Specifics of the event are as follows:

  • What: NICHD Director’s Lecture Series Pharmacogenomics: Beyond Biomarkers
  • When: January 17, 2012, 10:00-11:00 a.m. 
    Where: Balcony A, Natcher Building (Building 45), NIH Main Campus, Bethesda, Maryland

The NICHD Director’s Lecture Series is open to the public, and registration is not required. Non-NIH employees should visit http://www.nih.gov/about/visitor/index.htm for details about getting to the NIH campus and security procedures.

Individuals with disabilities who need sign language interpreters and/or reasonable accommodations to participate should contact Vernon Cardwell (cardwellv@od.nih.gov or 301-594-1968). Please make your requests at least five days in advance of the event.

For more information, select one of the links below:

Originally posted: January 10, 2012

All NICHD Spotlights

top of pageBACK TO TOP