SPECIALTY AND TITLE

Clinical Pharmacology, Professor and Wolfe Medical Research Chair in Pharmacogenomics

HOSPITAL AFFILIATIONS

London Health Sciences Centre

UNIVERSITY AFFILIATIONS

Western University

AREA OF RESEARCH

The research focus is that of better understanding the molecular basis of interindividual differences in drug response and the application of such findings to the emerging field of Personalized Medicine.

MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE AND/OR HEALTH CARE DELIVERY

In the late 1990s, our group was the first to demonstrate the importance of a drug transporter known as P-glycoprotein in limiting the CNS entry of an important class of medications known as HIV protease inhibitors. During early 2000s, we had discovered a common loss of function genetic variation in a transporter that proved to be a key predictor of muscle injury/pain for patients treated with statin class of lipid lowering medications. More recently, for chemotherapeutics such as 5-fluorouracil and capecitabine which are metabolized by DPD (gene name DPYD), our team led the effort for pre-treatment DPYD genotype testing for 4 genetic variations in DPYD that ultimately resulted in provincial funding for DPYD genotype testing to become a standard of care in Ontario (April 2023).