News Archive

Littlejohn, M.D. et. al. (2008) Ile164 variant of beta 2-adrenoceptor does not influence outcome in congestive heart failure but may interact with beta-blocker treatment. European Journal of Heart Failure 10, 55-59. This study demonstrates that a particular variant of a protein called beta 2-adrenoceptor does not appear to influence heart failure patient outcomes, contrary to earlier findings from Liggett et al. (1998).

McHugh et al. (2008) Proteomic analysis of embryonic stem cell-derived neural cells exposed to the antidepressant paroxetine. Journal of Neuroscience Research 86, 306-316. A basic research study that examines the effects of an antidepressant drug on proteins expressed by neural cells in culture. Several interesting proteins not previously implicated in antidepressant action were identified.

Prestigious HRC Charles Hercus Research Fellowship 2008 Awarded to Carney Centre Research Fellow Dr Rebecca Roberts. Dr Roberts’ research will focus on the genetics of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), specifically how genes may be able to predict both the risk of developing IBD and the response to drugs used to manage IBD. IBD, which appears as either Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, is a debilitating life-long condition with no known cure and it has been identified as a major health problem in New Zealand. The research undertaken by Dr Roberts may ultimately provide insights on how to prevent and better treat IBD.

Awards for pharmacologists.
Two members of the Carney Centre received special awards at the annual meeting of the Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists (ASCEPT) held in Adelaide in December 2007. Dr Sharon Gardiner received a New Investigators’ Award in recognition of her research entitled “Pharmacogenetics, drug metabolism and clinical practice”. The work was based on her PhD thesis of the same title, which was awarded by the University of Otago in 2007 and listed as an “Exceptional Thesis”. Professor Evan Begg received the inaugural ASCEPT Teaching Excellence Award for “outstanding service to education in the fields of Australasian pharmacology or toxicology”.

Kennedy, M.A. (2007) Pharmacogenomics: single genes, whole genomes and global networks. Personalized Medicine 4, 87-94. Review of Cold Spring Harbor/Wellcome Trust Pharmaco-genomics conference, held Nov 2007. Discusses the impact of technological change, the development of global pgx networks, the need for prospective trials and integration of pgx into pharmacovigilance programmes, and the promise of population pharmacogenetics programmes.

Stamp, L., et al. (2006) The use of low dose methotrexate in rheumatoid arthritis-are we entering a new era of therapeutic drug monitoring and pharmacogenomics? Biomed Pharmacother. 60(10):678-87. This review considers how the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis may be improved by applying careful monitoring procedures and new findings from genetic analysis. It concludes by indicating that although these methods have promise, they will need to be tested in large scale clinical trials before they can be used in the clinic.

Roberts, R.L., et al. (2006) IMPDH1 promoter mutations in a patient exhibiting azathioprine resistance. Pharmacogenomics J. 7, 312-317 Describes the finding of a mutation in a gene important for metabolism of thiopurine drugs such as azathioprine, and demonstrates that such mutations may lead to drug resistance in some patients.

Gardiner, S.J. and E.J. Begg, Pharmacogenetics, drug-metabolizing enzymes, and clinical practice. Pharmacological Reviews, 2006. 58(3): p. 521-590. Reviews the state of knowledge about enzymes that metabolise drugs in the body, and how they impact on current treatment of diseases.

Gardiner, S. J.; Gearry, R. B.; Barclay, M. L.; Begg, E. J. (2006) Two cases of thiopurine methyltransferase (TPMT) deficiency - a lucky save and a near miss with azathioprine
British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 62 (4) 473-476. Describes the outcome of treating two inflammatory bowel disease patients with the drug azathioprine. Both patients had mutations in a gene called TPMT that metabolises the drug. The outcome was much better when the deficiency was recognised early in treatment.

Priest, V.L., et al., Pharmacoeconomic analyses of azathioprine, methotrexate and prospective pharmacogenetic testing for the management of inflammatory bowel disease. Pharmaco-economics, 2006. 24(8): p. 767-781. Examined the cost effectiveness of treatments for inflammatory bowel disease, and the value of testing for lack of the enzyme TPMT.