Researchers at Hartford Hospital are looking into a gene that determines how fast the liver clears medication from the body. The goal of the five-year study is to reduce the guesswork in psychiatric drug dosing.
It’s a gene with a fancy name: CYP2D6.
“CYP2D6 is part of a family of 50 or so genes that detoxify substances,” said Gualberto Ruano, director of the Genetics Research Center at Hartford Hospital. He said the gene is especially relevant for the field of psychiatric medicine because it produces enzymes in the liver responsible for clearing some depression medications from the body.
But here’s the rub: people express this enzyme-producing gene differently.
Read the full, original story: Genetic Test Aims to Take Guesswork Out of Drug Dosing
