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Pharmacogenetics seeks to explain how people respond in different ways to the same drug treatment. A classic example of the importance of pharmacogenomics is the variation in individual responses to the anti-leukemia drug, 6-mercaptopurine. Most people metabolize the drug quickly. Some individuals, with a genetic variation for the enzyme thiopurine methyltransferase (TPMT), 1 do not. Consequently, they need lower doses of 6-mercaptopurine for effective treatment as normal doses can be lethal. One of the many promises of the human genome project is an ability to pharmacologically treat individuals in a more personalized rather than statistical manner.

Two independent sequence drafts of the human genome were recently completed and reported simultaneously in the literature. 2, 3 With these drafts in hand, and further refinement of these sequence maps expected in the future, scientists are presented with …