The UNC Program for Precision Medicine in Health Care (PPMH), which aims to transform patient care through evidence-based precision medicine, and the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences (NC TraCS) Institute at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) have awarded three pilot grants. The pilot grants have direct clinical or human translational impact and are focused on the implementation of precision medicine approaches in the UNC Health Care System and the state of North Carolina. PPMH will be providing the matching funds for these pilot grants.
Christine Kistler, MD, MASc, Associate Professor in the UNC Department of Medicine’s Division of Geriatric Medicine and Department of Family Medicine, will lead the study, “The Feasibility of Using a Pharmacogenetic Assay in Nursing Home Residents to Reduce Adverse Events (FOGI-NH)” that will focus on testing the feasibility of using pharmacogenomics to reduce medication adverse events in nursing home residents. The PGx1 assay, developed by the Wiltshire lab in the UNC School of Pharmacy’s Center for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy, evaluates 30 genes to determine how a patient will respond to 100+ drugs. Dr. Kistler will evaluate the ability to conduct a larger trial to examine the effectiveness of the PGx1 assay with nursing home residents and determine how the assay can be most effectively utilized in the nursing home setting.
Other pilot awardees include Kelli Allen, PhD, Pengda Liu, PhD, and Ian Davis, MD, PhD.