Pharmacogenomics: from cell to clinic.

The European Society of Pharmacogenomics and Theranostics (ESPT) will organize its second conference entitled “ Pharmacogenomics: From Cell to Clinic ” in Lisbon in September 26 – 28, 2013. The topic of the conference is the “ progress in implementing pharmacogenomics in clinical decision making ” . In addition to the research articles and reviews published in the current issue of Drug Metabolism and Drug Interactions ( DMDI ), this issue also contains the abstracts of the invited speakers, selected oral presentations and posters that arrived in due time. The first part of the abstracts, which corresponds to the first day of the conference, is devoted to cancer. In that field pharmacogenomics is most developed and progress is being made rapidly. However, pharmacogenomics is not only applied in cancer but also in other fields, and examples of its existing or potential clinical implementation are given in the second part of the abstracts. These examples involve, among others, pharmacogenetics and cardiovascular drugs, anti malaria systems, and Alzheimer disease. More explanatory and cellular approaches for the discovery and selection of useful biomarkers will be also presented. The importance of the drug transporters is highlighted by the use of cellular models, including stem cells or blood cells. During scientific symposia organized by industrial companies the new tools and devices required for the development in pharmacogenetic-related fields are presented. All these activities provide the basis for the integration and modeling of genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics data in the sprit of systems biology, leading to the reduction of the vast amount of information to be used by clinicians and health care professionals today. In the hope that this issue of DMDI attracts your interest we look forward to receiving the results of your work for publication in the Journal , either as review, research article, short communication or clinical case report. Your support for the further development of DMDI , which is the official journal of the ESPT, would be highly appreciated. I look forward to seeing you in Lisbon!