Gen en Geneesmiddel

About Gen en Geneesmiddel

Your drug sensitivity clearly arranged in a pharmacogenetic passport.

If you have been invited by Lifelines or Lifelines NEXT to participate in the research project 'Pharmacogenetic Passport', you can access your personal pharmacogenetic passport via this app.

What is Pharmacogenetics?
DNA is the most important carrier of hereditary (genetic) information. For example, the DNA of parents determines what color eyes, skin, or hair children will have. This is due to the structure of certain genes in the DNA. Some diseases are also hereditary and the way your body reacts to certain medicines is partly determined by the DNA.

Genes in your DNA describe how your body should make enzymes and proteins that are necessary to keep your body healthy. These 'instructions' in the DNA differ from person to person. We can examine the parts of DNA that provide the instructions for enzymes and proteins that influence the action of medicines. They do this because they influence certain processes in the body, for example by speeding up or slowing down the absorption of medicines. This can increase the chance of side effects, or reduce the chance that a medicine works well.

The name for this field is pharmacogenetics: how DNA influences the effect of certain medicines in a certain person. This helps to explain why a certain drug works very well for one person, while the same drug doesn't work for another. Pharmacogenetics therefore has nothing to do with hereditary diseases, although it does deal with DNA.

How does this Pharmacogenetic Passport work?
The Pharmacogenetic Passport offers part of the Lifelines and Lifelines NEXT participants the opportunity to gain insight into how their genes influence the effect of certain medicines. To this end, we investigated how the structure of certain genes in their DNA influences the effect of medicines. The structure of these genes does not change during your lifetime. For example, a (family) doctor and/or pharmacist can use the Pharmacogenetic Passport to provide even better and more personal advice about medicines.

In this app we only provide information about genes in relation to medicines: we have not investigated other matters, such as the hereditary predisposition to certain disorders. You will therefore not read anything about possible hereditary diseases and disorders in this app.

You can share your Pharmacogenetic Passport with your healthcare provider
In this app you can download the technical report of your Pharmacogenetic Passport as a PDF file and email it to your (general) doctor and/or pharmacist, or take it printed to the practice or pharmacy. In this way, they can provide even better tailored advice about medicines that someone is currently using or may use in the future. For certain medicines in the app, we expressly indicate that it is wise to discuss this with the (general) doctor and/or pharmacist.

What is the aim of the 'Pharmacogenetic Passport' research project?
Citizens increasingly indicate that they want to retain control over their own data and their medical care. It is therefore important that they receive information in a clear and comprehensible manner. In addition, it is of course important that this information can also be shared with healthcare providers, so that the information can be used to improve healthcare. In the 'Pharmacogenetic Passport' project, we investigate how citizens feel about receiving information about their hereditary drug sensitivity. In addition, we would like to know whether the information in the app is clear and complete, so that we can tailor it even better to the needs of citizens in the future. Finally, we also see the Pharmacogenetic Passport as a great way to give something back to Lifelines and Lifelines NEXT participants!