What is your first thought when you think of a career in pharmacy? You may think of a clinical pharmacist working in a community pharmacy or a hospital pharmacist working in an in-patient unit. But did you think about pharmacogenomics: the field of pharmacy that studies how someone’s genetics affect their response to a certain drug? Not many people are aware of the field of pharmacogenomics, and how it can optimize patient outcomes. I recently had the privilege of learning more about the pharmacogenomics field and a career in research pharmacy, which I will be sharing with you today.

My name is Amisha. I am a high school junior and an aspiring pharmacist. My interest in science and pharmacy started when I was five years old. My grandfather, who is a pharmacist, bought me a book with a hundred step-by-step experiments, and we would spend hours doing the experiments and talking about the science behind them afterward. As I got older, I started wearing makeup and taking an interest in my skincare. He would tell me about the composition of the oils in my lipstick, which products would help with my dry skin, and why these products would help because of their chemical compositions. These discussions with my grandfather and learning more about his career as a research pharmacist sparked my interest in pharmacology and drug design. However, as I grew up, I started to think about the impact I could make in a career in pharmacy.

To learn more about pharmacy and get more involved in the field, I contacted Dr. Jasmine Luzum, Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy. Her main field of research is pharmacogenetics, and just like many of you, I did not know much about the field before speaking to her. I had the chance to shadow her in her research and through this, I quickly learned that a career in pharmacogenomic research can help me make an impact on patients because it is the backbone of drug outcomes and safety. Thanks to pharmacogenomic testing, we can tell how a certain patient will respond to a certain drug based on their genetics. One great example of how pharmacogenomic testing can help optimize medications is the testing performed before prescribing the medication Abacavir, a medication used to treat HIV. However, approximately 5% of people who take Abacavir have a life-threatening allergic reaction known as Abacavir Hypersensitivity. Pharmacogenomic researchers discovered a genetic variant in the immune system that causes this life-threatening allergic reaction to Abacavir. Taking a pharmacogenomic test for the genetic variant before a prescription is written for Abacavir completely prevents this allergic reaction. Now the United States Food and Drug Administration and many other organizations around the world recommend this pharmacogenetic test before prescribing Abacavir to any patient, saving people from a life-threatening reaction.

To help me get more exposure to pharmacogenomics and to determine if a career in pharmacogenomic research would be a good fit for me, I had the chance to ask Dr. Luzum some questions about her career:

What motivated you to choose pharmacogenomics as your field of research?

Dr. Luzum: “I am interested in why patients don’t all respond to medications the same way and genetics is a newer field to understand why patients don’t respond to the same medication. I’m also interested in genetics because it ties in ancestry and human evolution.”

How do you balance your responsibilities between teaching, research, and family life?

Dr. Luzum: “Being an academic researcher, I set my own work schedule for the most part.”

How do you see pharmacogenomics being utilized to influence personalized medicine in the future?

Dr. Luzum: “I think it’s going to be just a normal part of healthcare in the future. Maybe within the next 10 years, it’ll be just like any other information we use in the patient’s chart to optimize their medication regimen. Right now, I use all kinds of factors to prescribe the best medication regimen to the patient, like age, kidney function, liver function, pharmacokinetics, and drug interactions.”

What are some barriers to pharmacogenomics?

Dr. Luzum: “When I started in this field over 10 years ago, it was in the early phase of implementation and many barriers had to be overcome before it could be used for more widespread and clinical practice. But now those barriers have been overcome. For example, we didn’t have prospective, randomized, controlled trials showing that using pharmacogenetics improves outcomes for patients. We have that now. Genetic testing used to be expensive but now it’s lower in cost. I think the last remaining barrier is just healthcare provider awareness and education.”

Before this post, many of you may have not heard of the field of pharmacogenomics or considered a career path as a researcher in this field of pharmacy. The opportunity I had to learn more about pharmacogenomics opened my eyes to the complexity, and collaboration that is involved in pharmacogenomics as well as the potential in being able to impact individual patients’ lives in the future. I see the future with Dr. Luzum in that it will eventually become the norm for optimizing patient responses to various medications, and I hope to be part of that someday. I truly appreciate the opportunity that Dr. Luzum has given me to shadow her in her research and hope that many students will also consider this career path in the future as well.