Three HMS professors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have been awarded more than $17 million from the Pharmacogenomics Research Network (PGRN), a collaborative program developed by the National Institutes of Health to focus on understanding how genes affect an individual’s response to medicine.
Robert Plenge, HMS professor of medicine, received $7.5 million for his research project, titled “Genetic Predictors of Response to Anti-TNF Therapy in Rheumatoid Arthritis.” Scott Weiss, HMS professor of medicine, and Kelan Tantisira, HMS assistant professor of medicine, received $9.8 million for their research, “Pharmacogenetics of Asthma Treatment.”
Launched in 2000, the PGRN has already identified gene variants linked to responses to medicine for different types of cancer, heart disease, asthma and nicotine addiction. This year the program funded 14 research projects and seven network resources and expanded into new areas including rheumatoid arthritis and bipolar disorder.
