RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Application of Pharmacogenomics and Bioinformatics to Exemplify the Utility of Human ex vivo Organoculture Models in the Field of Precision Medicine JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 649376 DO 10.1101/649376 A1 K Cowan A1 G Macluskie A1 M Finch A1 C.N.A Palmer A1 J Hair A1 M Bylesjo A1 S Lynagh A1 P Brankin A1 M McNeil A1 C Low A1 D Mallinson A1 EM Gourlay A1 H Child A1 L Cheyne A1 DC Bunton YR 2019 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/05/27/649376.abstract AB Here we describe a collaboration between industry, the National Health Service (NHS) and academia that sought to demonstrate how early understanding of both pharmacology and genomics can improve strategies for the development of precision medicines. Diseased tissue ethically acquired from patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), was used to investigate inter-patient variability in drug efficacy using ex vivo organocultures of fresh lung tissue as the test system. The reduction in inflammatory cytokines in the presence of various test drugs was used as the measure of drug efficacy and the individual patient responses were then matched against genotype and microRNA profiles in an attempt to identify unique predictors of drug responsiveness. Our findings suggest that genetic variation in CYP2E1 and SMAD3 genes may partly explain the observed variation in drug response.