I lost my gamble. I was an astrophysicist. Why couldn’t you be a structural chemist or something like that? Molecular biology? Ouch! I’ll get killed.
Oh gosh. I didn’t even take high school biology. There simply wasn’t time. I took chem and physics and as much advanced math as I could.
I tutor quite a few students, and I have had to work with nursing students, so I had to pick up crash courses in biology to get me up to speed, and help them with their anatomy and physiology courses.
At least I think I understand what it is that you do. You tailor drugs to individuals so that they work better?
But great guess. The notion of ‘individual medicine’ and interpersonal variability in response to drugs is one of the main things looked at in Pharmacokinetics.
Some people are “poor metabolizers” of a drug, and so a normal dose regimen will lead to toxic accumulation as their liver doesn't clear it at the expected rate.
Others are “fast metabolizers” of a drug, and so a normal dose regimen will not accumulate to an efficacious dose - and they get little or no benefit from the therapy.
This is based upon genetic variability of CYP P450 enzymes expressed primarily in the liver.
Sometimes it is based upon genetic variability of the gene that codes for the protein the drug is supposed to act upon.
For example, if a small molecule drug is supposed to bind to a receptor and turn it “on” to stimulate a therapeutic response within the body - if there is high genetic variability in the gene that codes for that receptor - it might not bind in some people or it might bind and turn it “off”.
Luckily for me humans show a high level of genetic homology. We are all very similar in DNA despite the superficial differences that arose as a result of climactic differences over our worldwide distribution.
:)