Institute for Precision Medicine Faculty to Present at Precision Medicine World Conference

November 6, 2019

In January 2020, members of the joint University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Institute for Precision Medicine (IPM) will be present at the Precision Medicine World Conference that will be held in Santa Clara, California, January 21-24.

Presentations

Adrian V. Lee, PhD, director of the Institute for Precision Medicine, will present on the topic of “Implementing Precision Medicine in Community Hospitals” on January 22 at 1:30 p.m.

Dr. Lee is director of the Institute for Precision Medicine, professor of Pharmacology & Chemical Biology, and professor of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh. He has had a key role in shaping precision medicine research at the University of Pittsburgh and personalized care in the large UPMC integrated finance and delivery healthcare system. An example of the early progress in precision medicine is research and implementation of pharmacogenomics, and development of computational systems and architecture for sharing of clinical and genomic data. The goal of Dr. Lee’s laboratory is to translate basic cell and molecular research findings into the understanding and treatment of breast cancer. He is currently leading an effort to sequence metastatic breast cancers to identify vulnerabilities for novel precision therapies. Dr. Lee has published more than 160 peer reviewed research articles. In 2018 Dr. Lee was awarded the Terri L Chapman award from Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the PNC Elsie Hillman Distinguished Scholar award, and the University of Pittsburgh Biomedical Graduate Scholar Association (BGSA) Distinguished Mentor Award.

IPM Associate Director, Philip Empey, PharmD, PhD, will speak on January 24 in the Precision Pharmacotherapy Session on how precision pharmacotherapy is combining genetic, environmental, lifestyle, and other unique patient or disease characteristics to guide drug selection and dosage.

Dr. Empey is the associate director for Pharmacogenomics of the IPM and leads the PreCISE-Rx and Test2Learn teams to implement pharmacogenomics clinical, research, and educational initiatives. As a clinician-scientist in the Department of Pharmacy and Therapeutics at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Empey conducts NIH-funded clinical and translational research aimed at understanding the mechanisms of the variability in drug response to improve medication-related outcomes in critically-ill patients. His current research interests include understanding the role/impact of xenobiotic transporters following neurological injury, transporter pharmacogenomics, pharmacogenomics clinical implementation, collection of medication-related phenotype information, and genotype-phenotype discovery. Dr. Empey teaches at the graduate level in pharmacokinetics, pharmacogenomics, and drug transporters in the Schools of Pharmacy, Medicine, and Nursing. He also has a research interest in innovative educational models to transform education.

Mylynda B. Massart, MD, PhD, will speak on the growing demands for the integration of genomics into primary care in a presentation titled “Unlocking The Potential Of Precision Medicine in Primary Care.” Dr. Massart’s lecture will be held on January 22 at 5 p.m.

Dr. Massart is an assistant professor of Family Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She graduated with a PhD in Biochemistry/ Molecular Biology from University of Utah, Salt Lake City and as MD from Oregon Health & Sciences University, Portland, OR. She completed the Family Medicine Residency at Providence Milwaukie Family Medicine, Milwaukie, OR. Dr. Massart completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Molecular Medicine, Oregon Health & Sciences University, Portland, OR. Currently she serves as the medical director at UPMC Matilda Theiss Family Health Center and has a family practice with special interest in primary care genetics. Dr. Massart has a joint appointment at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute as co-director of the Integrating Special Populations Core, co-investigator on the All of Us Pennsylvania Research Program, and Co-investigator of the Pitt + Me Discovery Biobank with special interest in return of genetic results to patients and providers.

About the Institute for Precision Medicine

The Institute for Precision Medicine (IPM) is a collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC. The IPM facilitates the movement of biomedical research into personalized well-being and clinical care. The over-arching goal is to help researchers and clinicians discover and exploit clinically actionable individual features about risk of disease, optimal treatment, disease course, and response to treatment. Supporting projects working toward this goal will likewise help determine the circumstances in which these insights lead to better outcomes and reduced health care costs. A key ancillary goal relates to the education of health care professionals, researchers, patients, and the public about the application of personalized medicine, ranging from technological advances through ethical considerations. To learn more, please visit ipm.pitt.edu.