What's New at GWUMC

Improving patient care by “personalizing” the practice of medicine often results from studying specific drugs and their impact of genetic biomarkers.

New research underway at GW by Travis O’Brien, PhD, looks at the drug warfarin, an oral anticoagulant used to treat individuals with certain cardiovascular diseases warfarin accounts for several million prescriptions each year. With its narrow therapeutic index, warfarin may not be well tolerated by certain individuals because of their genetic makeup, says Dr. O’Brien, associate professor of Pharmacology and Physiology

O’Brien and a team of researchers hope to unlock the key to the personalization of warfarin therapy based on a patient’s genetic biomarkers. The multidisciplinary research team also includes April Barbour, MD, assistant professor of Medicine, Linda Lesky, MD, associate professor of Medicine and Health Policy, and Perry Payne Jr., MD, JD, MPP, assistant research professor of Health Policy. In addition, the study will be conducted in collaboration with GW adjunct faculty, Arthur Harralson, PharmD, and Robert Kidd, PharmD, PhD, from Shenandoah University, Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy. 

As part of the study, samples will be collected at the Medical Faculty Associates. DNA from the samples will then be isolated and analyzed at the GW Pharmacogenomics Program laboratory, located at GW’s Ashburn, Va., campus. The analyzed samples will then be subject to DNA sequencing, which is undertaking in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology’s Core Sequencing Facility located in Ross Hall.

“We believe that research aimed at decreasing the health care costs associated with stabilizing patients’ wafarin dosing potentially can work as a preventative measure to decrease the incidence of adverse drug reactions associated warfarin,” Dr. O’Brien said.