Planning for a national effort to enable and accelerate discoveries in pharmacogenetics: the NIH Pharmacogenetics Research Network.

The Pharmacogenetics Research Network (PGRN) was conceived as a broad network-based approach to research studies in pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics, with the central feature of a database that would be hypothesis-generating and open to all scientific investigators. The original working group emphasized the importance of carefully relating phenotypes for drug responses to genotypes, and understanding the relationships functionally and mechanistically. The mission of the PGRN is to advance our knowledge of the genetic basis for variable drug responses. The ultimate goal of the effort is to determine clinically significant sequence variations in order to predict the right choice and dose of medications for individuals and to prepare for implementation of this information to improve health care.