UF researcher gets $11 million to study genes, blood pressure drugs

August 18, 2005

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A University of Florida scientist has been awarded an $11.1 million, five-year grant to lead a large group of genetic researchers in an effort to help people with high blood pressure.

Researchers at medical centers at UF, the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Minnesota, Emory University in Atlanta and the University of Texas at Houston will study 800 patients to find ways to tailor drug prescriptions to people’s unique genetic make-ups, according to Julie Johnson, director of the UF Center for Pharmacogenomics and the study’s principal investigator.

The award is part of the Pharmacogenetics Research Network initiative, a nationwide collaboration of scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health to study how an individual’s genes affect the way he or she responds to medicines.

“It’s often trial and error when a patient is treated for high blood pressure,” said Johnson, a professor at UF’s colleges of Pharmacy and Medicine and an executive committee member of the UF Genetics Institute. “There are more than 40 drugs to treat hypertension, but any given one will work in only about 50 percent of the individuals. That means it takes longer to get people the medicine that’s right for them, and during the process they wind up taking more drugs than they need to.”

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is the most prevalent risk factor for heart attack, stroke, kidney failure and heart failure. Because it’s not easy to match a patient with the best drug, some patients become frustrated and quit treatment.

“The goal of pharmacogenetics is to identify the right drug for the right person,” said Rochelle Long, Ph.D., director of the Pharmacogenetics Research Network. “Dr. Johnson’s group will very carefully study the disorder and evaluate common drugs used to treat it, to learn how to choose the best drug for each patient.”

Scientists will focus on individual patient responses to two contrasting drug treatments. One treatment involves a heart drug known as a beta-blocker. The other involves a diuretic, which helps the body get rid of excess water and salt.

Both drugs can successfully lower high blood pressure in some patients, but in other patients they don’t work as well or may create adverse effects.

“This grant will allow Dr. Johnson and her colleagues to continue their important work, which might someday lead to the use of genetics to guide the selection of the best blood pressure medicine for a specific patient,” said pharmacy Dean William Riffee, Ph.D. “Additionally, with her entry into the NIH-supported Pharmacogenetics Research Network, composed of 12 investigative teams nationwide, Dr. Johnson’s team is placed among the pre-eminent pharmacogenetics researchers in the country.”

Other teams in the network are looking at the effect of genes on people’s responses to a wide variety of medicines, including chemotherapy and drugs for asthma and high cholesterol.

Together, the groups are charged with developing a genetics database that can be used by all researchers in the field.

“This is the future,” said Dr. Kenneth Berns, director of the UF Genetics Institute. “If you’re going to take optimal care of patients, you’re going to have to know their genetic profiles to predict how the patients are going to respond to certain drugs.”

The team approach will accelerate the research, Johnson said.

“By spreading the work among multiple centers, we can study a very diverse population of patients,” Johnson said. “We also expect to move forward at a far greater rate than any single center could.”

Other key UF investigators are Issam Zineh, of the department of pharmacy practice in the College of Pharmacy; John Gums, of the department of pharmacy practice and of the department of community health and family medicine in the College of Medicine; Rhonda Cooper-DeHoff, of the division of cardiovascular medicine in the College of Medicine, and Dr. R. Whit Curry Jr., of the department of community health and family medicine.