Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Defining our lists of PGx information

With the increasing implementation of pharmacogenomics knowledge we are often asked "What is the difference between the CPIC gene list, VIP list and the Clinical Annotations list on PharmGKB?"

Here we clarify their contents:

VIP genes (purple layer of the PharmGKB Knowledge Pyramid)
This is a list of Very Important Pharmacogenes for which the PharmGKB curators have written a concise review about the gene from the published literature. These summaries are useful for research purposes and background knowledge. These are genes with a known role in the pharmacokinetics or pharmacodynamics of drugs but associations with VIP genes may not necessarily translate into therapeutic recommendations for the clinic. This list is added to as new VIP summaries are written and published, and VIP summaries are periodically reviewed and updated.

Clinical Annotations (blue layer of the PharmGKB Knowledge Pyramid)
The PharmGKB Clinical Annotations cover the full spectrum of pharmacogenetic associations between a particular genetic variant and a drug, from low levels of evidence (e.g. in vitro assays only) to those that are implemented in the clinic. The likely drug response is outlined for each genotype of the genetic variant. Clinical Annotations below Level 1A may not yet be clinically actionable.

CPIC Gene-Drug Pairs (top green layer of the PharmGKB Knowledge Pyramid)

This is a list of gene and drug combinations for which consensus genotype-based therapeutic recommendations for clinical practice can be made. CPIC guidelines are only written for pharmacogenetic associations that are clinically actionable. This list is updated as new CPIC guidelines are published or new suggestions for important gene-drug pairs are discussed by the CPIC group. Read more about CPIC and view the published CPIC genotype-based dosing guidelines.

Read more in the Overview of the PharmGKB
Read the recent PharmGKB publication

The PharmGKB Knowledge Pyramid


Monday, October 8, 2012

New pathway: Vemurafenib Pathway, Pharmacodynamics

We have added a new pathway: Vemurafenib PD pathway to our pathway collections. 

Vemurafenib (marketed as ZELBORAF) is an oral BRAF inhibitor used to treat late-stage melanoma.  It specifically targets the mutant BRAF protein (V600E isoform) that is found in approximately half of all cases of melanoma. Vemurafenib is a personalized targeted therapy and it is only designed to be used in patients with the BRAF V600E mutation, but not for use in patients with wild-type BRAF melanoma.

PharmGKB Vemurafenib PD pathway describes the mechanism of action of vemurafenib and how it blocks tumor cell proliferation and survival via targeting BRAF V600E to effectively inhibit the MAPK signaling pathway. 

View or download the pathway at Vemurafenib PD pathway.

View all pathways at PharmGKB.

Friday, October 5, 2012

PharmGKB welcomes Daniel Klein to the team

We are pleased to welcome curator Daniel Klein to the PharmGKB team. Daniel recently graduated from the University of California, San Diego. His background is physics (specializing in astrophysics) with minors in biology, chemistry, and psychology. During his senior year at UCSD, Daniel worked as a part-time curator for the PharmGKB. We thank UCSD for providing Daniel a broad introduction to pharmacogenomics during his graduate course which included lectures from such PGx notables including Darrell Abernethy and Richard Weinshilboum.