Asthma Pharmacogenomics: 2015 Update

There is evidence that genetic factors are implicated in the observed differences in therapeutic responses to the common classes of asthma therapy such as β2-agonists, corticosteroids, and leukotriene modifiers. Pharmacogenomics explores the roles of genetic variation in drug response and continues to be a field of great interest in asthma therapy. Prior studies have focused on candidate genes and recently emphasized genome-wide association analyses. Newer integrative omics and system-level approaches have recently revealed novel understanding of drug response pathways. However, the current known genetic loci only account for a fraction of variability in drug response and ongoing research is needed. While the field of asthma pharmacogenomics is not yet fully translatable to clinical practice, ongoing research should hopefully achieve this goal in the near future buttressed by the recent precision medicine efforts in the USA and worldwide.