2019:  IUPHAR-IUTOX Exchange Symposium (Honolulu, USA) July 18, 2019.

Following the successful IUTOX symposium held at the WCP2018 congress in Kyoto, it was IUPHAR’s turn to organise and hold a symposium at ICTXV2019 (co-hosted by SOT) at the Hawaii Convention Center. IUPHAR charged the Pharmacogenetics and Pharmacogenomics Subcommittee to organise the symposium which was conducted in collaboration with the Drug Metabolism and Drug Transport subcommittee chaired by Matthias Schwab.   The title of the stand-alone symposium “Precision Medicine and ADME-Targets” was chaired by Andrew Somogyi. Speakers were: Nuala Helsby (New Zealand), Bhagwat Prasad (USA), Andrew Somogyi (Australia) and Deanna Kroetz (USA)

2018: 18^th World Congress of Pharmacology (WCP2018 | Kyoto, Japan) [July 1-6]

The subcommittee organized the symposium “Pharmacogenomics in Special Populations” which was chaired by the subcommittee chair Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz and Andrew Somogyi (Vice chair). Speakers were Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz, Andrew Somogyi, Eleni Aklillu and Yoshiro Saito.

A report on the symposium was published as:

Conference Report: Pharmacogenomics in special populations at WCP2018.

Suarez-Kurtz G et al. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2019 Mar;85(3):467-475. doi: 10.1111/bcp.13828

A business meeting of the IUPHAR Pharmacogenomics and Pharmacogenetics subcommittee was held on July 4- chaired by Prof Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz highlighting that the Symposium was extremely well attended with standing-room only.  A pre-business ballot resulted in Andrew Somogyi being appointed as Chair and Ann Daly as Vice-Chair. Andrew Somogyi thanked Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz for his significant and substantial contributions to the Subcommittee as Chair. He also thanked the outgoing Past Chair (Ingolf Cascorbi) for his drive and energy in having the Subcommittee established by IUPHAR. Items of business included: a. improving the education arm of the section; b. furthering joint meetings and collaborations with similar organisations such as the Annual African Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacogenetics workshop; c. closer interactions with the Drug Metabolism and Transport Section; d. endorsing Eleni Aklillu (Sweden) and Marja-Liisa Dahl (Sweden) to Board membership.

2018: XXII International Congress of Genetics (ICG) | Foz do Iguaçu, Paraná, Brazil [September 10-14.]

A symposium “Pharmacogenomics: Discovery and Implementation” within the congress was sponsored by IUPHAR, with chairs Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz and Mara H Hutz.

Speakers were: Stuart A Scott (USA), Andrea Gaedigk (USA) and Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz (Brazil)

2015: Golden Helix Symposium “Next Generation” Pharmacogenetics (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) 11-13 March

This 2-day symposium was sponsored by 4 organisations including IUPHAR, the Malaysian government and biotechnology companies and was expertly organized by Prof Zahurin Mohamed from the University of Malaya. The IUPHAR Pharmacogenetics and Genomics subcommittee was extremely well represented by speakers Munir Pirmohamed (UK), Ron Van Schaik (Netherlands), Ming Ta Michael Lee (Japan), Jae-Gook Shin (Korea) and Andrew Somogyi (Australia). There was a South East Asian Pharmacogenetics (SEAPHARM) regional meeting on the last afternoon to discuss better ways to collaborate on important pharmacogenomic research with a focus on Serious Adverse Events including SJS/TENS and DILI.

2014: 17^th World Congress of Pharmacology (WCP2014) (Capetown, South Africa), July 13-18.

The Pharmacogenetics and, Drug Metabolism and Transport subcommittees organized three symposia: 

Epigenetic regulation of drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters including subcommittee speakers Magnus Ingelman-Sundberg and Ingolf Cascorbi;

Globalized Pharmacogenomics-based personalized medicine including subcommittee speakers Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz, Andrew Somogyi, Ingolf Cascorbi, Adrián LLerena, Collen Masimirembwa and Vural Özdemir.

Pharmacogenetics: Focus on infectious diseases and population diversity. Speakers were Munir Pirmohamed, Eleni Aklillu, Collet Dandara and Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz

A report of this session was published in OMICS. 2016 Sep;20(9):496-7. doi: 10.1089/omi.2016.0128.

At the business meeting of the Pharmacogenetics Section, Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz was appointed as the new Chair.

2013: 2_nd ESCPT Conference, September 26-28, 2013, Lisbon, Portugal.

This three day conference entitled ”From Cell to clinic” was sponsored by IUPHAR and included five subcommittee members as speakers: Ann Daly, Magnus Ingelman-Sundberg, Vangelis Manolopoulos, Matthias Schwab, Ingolf Cascorbi.

On the second day of the conference the IUPHAR Pharmacogenetics Subcommittee held a special workshop on Global status of clinical implementation of pharmacogenomics: A brief survey, which was underwritten by IUPHAR and the IUPHAR Clinical Division, in order to highlight the role of Pharmacogenetics in clinical medicine. This workshop fostered a lively discussion among the speakers and attendees who were from academia and industry. In particular Guilherme Kurtz-Suarez, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), contributed to the discussion by outlining the situation in South America involving mixed populations. The aim of this workshop was to provide a brief overview of the symposium the Pharmacogenetics Section was planning to present during the 17th World Congress of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology in Cape Town in July, 2014.

2013: 5_th International Congress on Psychopharmacology & International Symposium on Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology (Antalya, Turkey), October 30- November 3. This congress was held under the auspices of IUPHAR. The IUPHAR PGx Subcommittee was kindly invited by Prof. Feyza Aricioglu (Marmara University, Istanbul), to organize a symposium on personalized medicine in psychiatry. Two of its members were speakers (Ingolf Cascorbi and Julia Stingl).

2010: 16^th World Congress of Pharmacology (WorldPharma2010) (Copenhagen, Denmark) [July 17-23]

The subcommittee organised a workshop “Implementation and obstacles of pharmacogenetics in clinical practice” chaired by subcommittee members Ingolf Cascorbi and Magnus Ingelman- Sundberg and with subcommittee speakers Deanna Kroetz, Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz, Adrián Llerena, Andrew Somogyi and Vural Özdemir.

2008: July 27-August 1 CPT Quebec City (Canada)

2008: São Paulo Research Conference (São Paulo, Brazil) September 18-20

IUPHAR supported the 10^th São Paulo Research Conference on Molecular Medicine and Pharmacogenetics, in which Prof Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz organised the pharmacogenetics (PgX) programme. Many members of the subcommittee presented in the different symposia, with the conference pharmacogenetics programme published as:

São Paulo Research Conference on Molecular Medicine and Pharmacogenetics, A Joint Meeting with the IUPHAR Sub-Committee on Pharmacogenetics and the Brazilian Pharmacogenetics Network, São Paulo, Brazil, September 18-20, 2008. Guilherme Suarez-Kurtz and Ingolf Cascorbi.  Current Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine, 2008, 6 (4), 234-238, 2008.

2006: 15^th World Congress of Pharmacology (Beijing, China), July 2-7.

At this congress, the General Assembly ratified the change in the name of IUPHAR to the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology.