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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
Pharmacogenetics represents a field of connection and cooperation between pharmacology and genetics, which will promote knowledge in both fields. It concerns the plusvariant action of drugs in those families in which they produce toxic reactions, as well as the minusvariant action in particularly resistant families, so that drugs become useless at normal doses. These phenomena stress both the mechanism of action of such drugs and the existence of hereditary metabolic defects. Some typical cases are reported, with special concern to twin observations. It is finally suggested that pharmacogenetics may concern three specific branches: (a) regulation, (b) substitution and (c) repair.