Pharmacogenomics, human genetic diversity and the incorporation and rejection of color/race in Brazil

Abstract

Public funding for research on the action of drugs in countries like the United States requires that racial classification of research subjects should be considered when defining the composition of the samples as well as in data analysis, sometimes resulting in interpretations that Whites and Blacks differ in their pharmacogenetic profiles. In Brazil, pharmacogenomic results have led to very different interpretations when compared with those obtained in the United States. This is explained as deriving from the genomic heterogeneity of the Brazilian population. This article argues that in the evolving field of pharmacogenomics research in Brazil there is simultaneously both an incorporation and rejection of the US informed race-genes paradigm. We suggest that this must be understood in relation to continuities with national and transnational history of genetic research in Brazil, a differently situated politics of Brazilian public health and the ongoing valorization of miscegenation or race mixture by Brazilian geneticists as a resource for transnational genetic research. Our data derive from anthropological investigation conducted in INCA (Brazilian National Cancer Institute), in Rio de Janeiro, with a focus on the drug warfarin. The criticism of Brazilian scientists regarding the uses of racial categorization includes a revision of mathematical algorithms for drug dosage widely used in clinical procedures around the world. Our analysis reveals how the incorporation of ideas of racial purity and admixture, as it relates to the efficacy of drugs, touches on issues related to the possibility of application of pharmaceutical technologies on a global scale.

Genetic Association of the PERIOD3 (Per3) Clock Gene with Bipolar Disorder

“…The population stratification arises from differences between distinct ethnic groups. 40 In addition, the Brazilian population presents considerable degree of miscegenation, 41 42 43 which could contribute to the HWE deviation found. Other hypotheses have also been thrown while trying to explain the HWE deviations eventually found in genetic studies.…”

Entangled local biologies: genetic risk, bodies and inequities in Brazilian cancer genetics

“…Santos et al. suggest that a focus on genetic ancestry in Brazilian pharmacogenomics research has served to underlie the specificity of both Brazil and the Latin American region ( 2015 ). In a similar way the foregrounding of genetic ancestry in Brazilian cancer genetics works to articulate the importance of the local biologies that might be contributing to rising and variable cancer incidence.…”

Anthropologies of Cancer in Transnational Worlds

“…Within Brazil, an emphasis on the unknown contribution of genetic risk in understanding the rising rates of cancer in the country reveals the limits of international standardized risk models and fuels the pursuit and activism of practitioners caught up in Brazilian cancer genetics framed in terms of fi nding more appropriate local estimations of genetic risk for the Brazilian population. In practice, however, efforts to identify the particular genetic aspects of the Brazilian population that may be relevant in terms of genetic ancestry and establish the relevance (or irrelevance) of certain mutations linked to an increased risk of cancer can involve both the incorporation and simultaneous rejection of categories of race and ethnicity ; see also Santos, Silva & Gibbon 2014).…”