Pharmacogenomic Applications in the Developing World: The American Continent

Abstract

Pharmacogenomic applications in developing nations of the Americas must take into account their ethnic, cultural, socioeconomical, scientific, and technological disparities, in addition to the genetic heterogeneity and population diversity. Language distinguishes the Portuguese-speaking Brazilians from the Spanish-speaking peoples living in all other Latin American nations. Although Native American, European, and sub-Saharan African biogeoghraphical ancestries are common to all Latin American countries, the relative proportions of each ancestral root vary across countries and, most importantly, among individuals in each nation (Suarez-Kurtz and Pena 2006; Parra 2007; Silva-Zolezzi et al. 2009; Rojas et al. 2010). In Brazilians, this occurs irrespective of “race/color” self-identity (Pena et al. 2011). Based on gross domestic product (GDP), Brazil ranks as the 8th and Mexico as the 14th largest world economies, whereas their neighbors, Uruguay and Guatemala rank 78th and 77th, respectively (Table 10.1). However, a considerably different picture emerges from the GDP per capita, with Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, and Guatemala appearing in the 71th, 59th, 60th, and 116th positions, respectively. Scientific/technological achivement, as assessed by the number of indexed publications by country of origin, has Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, and Guatemala in the 13th, 29th, 75th, and 125th positions, respectively. Not surprinsingly, the extent of pharmacogenetics/pharmacogenomics (PGx) investigations varies considerably across Latin America, and examples of PGx applications in patient care, drug regulation, or drug development are few and isolated throughout the region.