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Contact: Alisa Zapp Machalekalisa.machalek@nih.gov 301-496-7301NIH/National Institute of General Medical Sciences Gene variant linked to risk of stroke and heart attack for those on Plavix NIGMS media availability WHAT: A new study reports that a gene variant carried by about a third of the population plays a major role in this group's response to an anti-clotting medicine, clopidogrel (Plavix). People with the variant produce a defective version of the CYP2C19 enzyme and are less able to activate the drug.One of the world's best-selling medicines, Plavix prevents blood clots in people with heart disease by keeping platelets from sticking together. But about...

A Conversation With Mary V. Relling MEMPHIS — In Mary V. Relling’s office in St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital sits a small ceramic statue of St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of impossible causes. Dr. Relling, the head of the department of pharmaceutical sciences at St. Jude, has a fondness for impossible causes. Her own is pharmacogenetics, a clinical discipline in which doctors use high-tech genetic testing to custom-make drugs to patients’ individual needs. Though pharmacogenetics is controversial and not yet widely done, Dr. Relling, 46, travels the country advocating its use. At St. Jude, patients with leukemia are now...