Latest “Traces Thursday” story explores the blood thinner clopidogrel and the research that revealed why patients respond differently to the same drug.

WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, October 9, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Yesterday, Stand Up for Science released the seventh installment of its weekly “Traces Thursday” series exploring how landmark medical therapies emerge from decades or even centuries of foundational scientific research. This week’s story, “Blood thinners and pharmacogenomics,” traces the development of the blood thinning compound clopidogrel and emphasizes the importance of continued research to understand how and why individual patients react differently to certain drugs.

Blood thinning drugs came on the heels of the development of aspirin, the story of which Traces Thursday covered last week. Aspirin does have ability to prevent blood clotting, which makes it useful for preventing cardiovascular events like heart attacks, but it also has side effects like stomach irritation and bleeding.

Scientists searching for more powerful blood-thinning compounds with fewer side effects eventually developed clopidogrel, marketed commercially as Plavix, which the FDA approved in 1997. Clopidogrel is known as a “pro-drug” – the pill contains a precursor drug that the body metabolizes into the active ingredient, as the active compound is too reactive to put into a pill on its own. A specific liver enzyme is responsible for converting the pro-drug into the active compound, and the genes that produce these enzymes vary across humans due to our evolutionary and geographic history. Once clopidogrel reached a widespread, more diverse patient base, it turned out it was not effective in patients with these genetic variations, as their genetic makeup prevented them from adequately metabolizing the pro-drug into the necessary active compound to make the treatment effective.

This case study illustrates yet another central lesson of drug development: the importance of not just understanding generally how medicines work, but understanding how an individual patient's genetic makeup and other variables can affect their reaction to and the efficacy of a drug.

“Like aspirin showed us in last week’s Traces, research and development does not end when a drug hits the market. Over a hundred drugs are known to be affected by genetic variations that impact their efficacy — and we are just starting to scratch the surface of pharmacogenetics, the study and implementation of genetic variations that affect drug action and dosing,” said Dr. Jeremy Berg, author of the Traces Thursday series and former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at NIH and former Editor-in-Chief of Science magazine, now a member of the Board of Advisors with Stand Up for Science.

This case study is the seventh of a planned twelve-part series. Each week, Berg examines a historical example of a major development in disease treatment to illustrate an unseen pattern: the decades or centuries of foundational research that precede any visible medical breakthrough or benefit, and the scientific, regulatory, and practical challenges that can follow it.

Amid ongoing debate over federal science funding, “Traces Thursday” underscores the importance of sustained investment in basic and biomedical research. The medical advances explored throughout the series all depend on research that unfolds over periods of time far longer than a single grant cycle or presidential administration.

Stand Up for Science will continue publishing “Traces Thursday” on the Science Fight Club Substack each Thursday.

Berg is available for comment.

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Stand Up for Science is a grassroots, Washington, D.C. based, non-profit organization mobilizing the fight for science and democracy. Stand Up for Science was formed in February 2025 in response to actions affecting federal science agencies and funding of the American scientific ecosystem. On March 7th, Stand Up for Science mobilized over 50,000 people at 170+ events across the world on its first National Day of Action. Federal scientists across multiple agencies (NIH, EPA, NASA, FEMA) have chosen Stand Up for Science as the platform to publish their open letters of concern. Stand Up for Science is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization [EIN: 33-4154429] and donations are not tax-deductible.

Char Bowling
Stand Up for Science
media@standupforscience.net