News about the Precision Medicine Project

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2023

  • Members of the lab spent a Saturday in August at the Polson, MT Back to School Bash recruiting participants for a tobacco cessation survey with members and descendants of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. The survey asks questions about participant's thoughts and opinions of tobacco use, tobacco cessation, and pharmacogenetic-guided cessation research (top right). 
  • In March, members of the lab participated in the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA. Drs. Karen Brown and Shayna Killam presented their research, and Dr. Killam was awarded a Presidential Trainee Award for her poster titled, "Building a pharmacogenetic testing program in pediatric and rural psychiatry."
  • Dr. Erica Woodahl participated in a panel on “Diversity and Its Impact on Pharmacogenomics” at the Updates in Precision Medicine and Pharmacogenomics meeting held in Orlando, FL in March (bottom right).
  • In February, Dr. Shayna Killam was awarded funding through the Pharmacogenomics Global Research Network (PGRN) and Myriad Genetics Grant to study the successes and pitfalls of pharmacogenetic testing implementation in rural, pediatric psychiatry. Dr. Killam had the opportunity to present her research plan at the PGRN Annual Business Meeting. 
  • Dr. Woodahl was featured on the podcast Project MUSE alongside Dr. Julie Beans from Southcentral Foundation. The episode titled, “Beyond the Manuscript: Values and Practices to Strengthen Genetic Research Partnerships with Indigenous Communities” discusses the collaborative effort between researchers in the Northwest-Alaska Pharmacogenetics Research Network and Indigenous communities in precision medicine and pharmacogenetics.

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Members of the Woodahl Lab celebrated the holidays and start to the spring semester with an axe throwing party!

2022

  • The paper titled "Ensuring equity: Pharmacogenetic implementation in rural and tribal communities" was published in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology. Tianna Lietch, PharmD and Shayna Killam, PharmD shared first authorship. 
  • Members of the lab provided samples to the genetics lab in Shodair Children's Hospital to assist in the final stages of developing a collaborative pharmacogenetic testing implementation project. Pharmacists and pharmacogenetic experts in the lab will soon begin providing pharmacogenetic testing consultations to Shodair patients. 
  • PhD candidate Jack Staples presented his research “Genetic and seasonal determinates of vitamin D status in Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) participants” to the Pharmacogenomics Global Research Network (PGRN) for their Early Career Research in Progress seminar series. 
  • Dr. Erica Woodahl was featured on the podcast, Academic Minute, discussing her work advancing access to pharmacogenetic testing for underserved populations. The podcast titled "Advancing Equity in Pharmacogenomics" explores community engagement strategies with rural and tribal populations, inequities in access to innovative healthcare services, and the development of the L.S. Skaggs Institute for Health Innovation at the University of Montana. 
  • Dr. Erica Woodahl and Shayna Killam, PharmD, in collaboration with Kyle Volk from UM's history department and Dr. Alison Fohner at the University of Washington, authored a chapter "Advancing Equity in the Promise of Pharmacogenomics" in the book Clinical Decision Support for Pharmacogenomic Precision Medicine. 
  •  As part of our grant "Community-Engaged Research Towards Precision Medicine with AIAN People" (R01HG009500) members of the lab participated in a 2-day deliberation in Seattle, WA with community members from our Tribal partners in Montana and Alaska and representatives from other Tribal groups, the NIH, and researchers. 
  • Karen Brown, PharmD and PhD Candidate Jack Staples co-authored the paper, " Keeping pace with CYP2D6 haplotype discovery: Innovative methods to assign function" which was published in the journal Pharmacogenomics. 
  • Members of the lab attended the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) Annual Meeting: 1) Karen Brown, PharmD received the "Best of Poster 2.0" award for her poster titled "Pharmacogenetics in Pediatric Psychiatry: Considerations for Implementation in Rural Communities" 2) PhD candidate Jack Staples received a top poster award for his presentation, ""Genetic and Seasonal Determinants of Vitamin D status in Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) Participants." 
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PhD Candidate Jack Staples participates in the pharmacogenetic testing pilot project with Shodair Children's Hospital (left), Karen Brown, PharmD presents her award winning poster during a special session at the ASCPT Annual Meeting (right) 

2021

  • Dr. Erica Woodahl was featured in an episode of UM's Confluence podcast discussing her partnership with the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes and their research in pharmacogenomics. She also touches on the importance of having a humanistic framework in engaging underserved communities in precision medicine research. 
  • Members of the Woodahl Lab presented their work at the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) Annual Meeting: 1) PhD Candidate Jack Staples was invited to present his work "Genetic and Seasonal Contributions to Variability in Vitamin D Levels in American Indian People" for the Special Populations Community; 2) PharmD, MS candidate Shayna Killam received the "Best of Poster 2.0" award for her presentation "Precision Medicine Under the Big Sky: Pharmacogenetic Implementation in Rural Settings. This granted her the opportunity to present the poster live during a special panel session. 

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Pharmacy student Shayna Killam presents her award winning poster during the ASCPT Annual Meeting (left). Members of the Woodahl lab were finally able to come together for an end of the school year picnic following months of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic (right). Everyone was excited to see each other in person and enjoy the sunshine! 

2020

2019

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2018

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  • Dr. Erica Woodahl was featured in an article Precision Medicine, Made for Pharmacists in Academic Pharmacy Now, the news magazine of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.
  • Postdoctoral fellow, Rachel Dalton, received a prestigious Presidential Trainee Award at the 2018 American Society for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics Annual Meeting. Check out Rachel's award-winning research poster video here!

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2017

  • Dr. Woodahl and her colleagues received $2.1 million from the National Institutes of Health to fund a R01 grant “Community-engaged research toward precision medicine with American Indian and Alaska Native people” (R01HG009500). The grant builds on Dr. Woodahl’s community partnership with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and with her colleagues at the Southcentral Foundation in Anchorage, Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, and the University of Washington in Seattle.
  • The Woodahl lab traveled to Pablo, MT to take part in the annual Women for Wellness event. Situated across from the UM Pharmacy program’s iPharm group in Health & Fitness Center at the Salish Kootenai College, Erica Woodahl and the gang mingled with the public as people wandered through the health fair’s many booths. The event ended up being a very productive day for both recruiting participants and getting the word out about our research. Both local newspapers wrote stories covering the event as a whole. Check out the stories here for more information on our involvement: Health Fair Draws Hundreds to SKC (Lake County Leader) and Wellness fair focuses on supporting women (Valley Journal)

2016

  • Our project in Montana was awarded a 5-year grant from the National Institutes of Health: Program on Genetic and Dietary Predictors of Drug Response in Rural and AI/AN Populations (NIGMS P01GM116691)

2010

  • We received our first National Institutes of Health grant: Pharmacogenetics in Rural and Underserved Populations (NIGMS U01GM092676). This grant established the Northwest-Alaska Pharmacogenomics Research Network (NWA-PGRN), which includes academic and tribal partners in Alaska, Montana, and Washington.