Pharmacogenomics of schizophrenia: Towards personalized psychiatry

Abstract

Psychiatry is among the primary medical disciplines to focus on the potential benefits from the cloning of the human genome and the subsequent implementation of personalized medicine. This viewpoint reflects the evident difficulties of current psychiatric practice compared with other disciplines, most notably the limited understanding of disease etiologies, the lack of reliable and objective diagnostic tools, and the paucity of relevant animal models. These aspects of psychiatry face major changes as a consequence of the recent identification of several schizophrenia risk genes. The reviews presented in this issue illustrate the potential for innovative drug discovery and personalized pharmacotherapy for schizophrenia. Drug Dev. Res. 60:71-74, 2003.