Molecular Genetic Bases for Quit Success

National Institute On Drug Abuse

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

During this year, we reported additional genome wide association for smoking cessation success in data from additional clincal trial participants in the United States and United Kingdom. We completed work on application of this work to prospective samples of clinical trial participants, and reported the exciting findings from this work. We reported models for the impressive effect on knowing quit success genes on the power of mid-sized clinical trials for smoking cessation. Smoking quit success genes identified in this fashion include a modest number of genes that we have identified in studies of addiction vulnerability. A sizable number of these genes have products that are involved in cell adhesion molecule actions. Several are likely to be involved in learning and memory mechanisms. These promising results, now obtained from seven independent samples, are allowing us to predict who might be more or less likely to succeed in quitting, in ways that may provide better targeting of antismoking therapeutics in the relatively near future.