The Raabe College of Pharmacy at Ohio Northern University has been awarded part of a $101,677 grant from the Computational Challenges of Genome-Wide Association Studies, sponsored by Microsoft Research. The college will use these funds to develop a software and data management system that utilizes patient-specific genetic information to predict and prevent adverse drug reactions.

Dr. Jon Sprague, professor of pharmacology and dean of the College of Pharmacy, is the co-investigator on the collaborative project with Dr. Michael Kane, assistant professor of computer technology at Purdue University. The project is titled "PGRx: an Interactive Software System for Integrating Clinical Genotyping with Prescription Drug Safety Assurance."

"The newly developed software and data management system will enable us to improve individualized drug treatment based on a patient's DNA," Sprague said.

The system would support the prescription drug process from physician to pharmacist to patient and will address the ethical and educational challenges that hinder the implementation of a clinical genotyping system for society.