HELEN SMITH
Assistant Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Dr. Smith has joined the Feik School of Pharmacy as an Assistant Professor in the Pharmaceutical Sciences. She arrived at FSOP after completing a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Pharmaceutics in the University of Washington, Seattle, WA where she conducted pharmacogenetic clinical studies investigating the role of metabolizing enzyme polymorphisms in the development of calcineurin inhibitor-induced nephrotoxicity. While a post-doc, she was a co-instructor for a graduate level Journal Club on the topic of Defining sensitive populations-Lessons learned with Pharmacogenomics. She also co-authored several publications, including an article in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (2005), a case in the Textbook of Therapeutics: Drug and Disease Management (2006), co-authorship in Appendix II: Design and Optimization of Dosage Regiments: Pharmacokinetic Data in Goodman & Gilman’s the Pharmacological basis of Therapeutics (2006), and Chapter 8: Polymorphisms in Xenobiotic Conjugation in Gene-Environment Interactions: Fundamentals of Ecogenetics (2005.) Results from one of her projects were presented at the 14th North American International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics, Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, October 2006. During her post-doc, Dr. Smith held a clinical pharmacist position at the University of Washington Medical Center where she practiced pharmacy in the Outpatient Pharmacy.
Prior to her postdoc, Dr. Smith earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Toxicology from the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle in 2004. She also completed the Certificate Program in Public Health Genetics in the Context of Law, Ethics, and Policy issued by the Institute for Public Health Genetics at the University of Washington. During her studies she was an NIEHS Environmental Pathology and Toxicology Training Grant Recipient. Her doctoral research involved determining functional significance of polymorphic estrogen metabolizing enzymes in the development of endometrial cancer. She gave several presentations of her research at national meetings including the Gordon Research Conference, Hormonal Carcinogenesis Section (2001), the Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting (2001), the Joint Meeting of the 38th Hanford Symposium on Health and the Environment & the 17th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Northwest Association of Toxicologists (2000), and the Gordon Research Conference, Mechanisms of Toxicity Section (2000). During her doctoral training she was a teaching assistant for several courses in the Department of Environmental Health, and was a member of the Department’s Graduate Admissions Committee and the Curriculum Committee. While earning her doctorate, Dr. Smith held a clinical pharmacist position at the University of Washington Medical Center where she practiced pharmacy in the Outpatient Pharmacy.
Before living in Seattle, Dr. Smith earned an MS in toxicology MS in Environmental Sciences from the Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center Houston. After earning that degree, she worked as a toxicologist in the Toxicology and Risk Assessment Section for the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission in Austin Texas and in the Risk Assessment Group for Radian International, LLC, in Austin. While earning her MS, she worked as a clinical pharmacist in the Department of Pharmacoeconomics, Division of Pharmacy at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Dr. Smith started her career as an Assistant Store Manager for Med-X Corporation in Tulsa Oklahoma and as a staff pharmacist at St. Francis Hospital, also in Tulsa Oklahoma after earning a BS in Pharmacy from the University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Smith’s teaching interests include developing introductory toxicology curriculum appropriate for pharmacy, and developing more advanced courses that explore the significance of the combined effects of drug usage with environmental and occupational exposures. She continues to be involved in the Pharmacogenetics research projects involving the calcineurin inhibitors, and will be developing collaborative research projects with colleagues in San Antonio.
