PIttPharmcah_PhilipEmpey_Reasearch_0065Philip E. Empey, PharmD, PhD, BCPS was awarded the 2015 Innovations in Teaching Competition Award from the American Association of College of Pharmacy (AACP) for his innovative approach to teaching pharmacogenomics in the PharmD program. Empey presented Test2Learn™: Advancing Pharmacogenomics Education in the Core PharmD Curriculum through Student Personal Genetic Testing at the July AACP annual meeting in National Harbor, Md.

Pharmacogenomics, understanding how a patient’s genes impact their response to medications, is at the forefront of personalized medicine. Real world application, however, remains limited by lack of clinician knowledge and experience working with genetic data. Test2Learn™ is novel educational program, supported through an Innovation in Education Grant Award from University of Pittsburgh Provost’s office that provides students the option to undergo personal genomic testing and to use their own genetic data, and that of their classmates, in unique learning activities. Through this program, Empey and colleagues Solomon M. Adams, PharmD and James Coons, PharmD, BCPS (AQ CV) developed new teaching materials, custom software for analyzing genetic data, and a novel partnership with a direct-to-consumer genetic testing company.

The program launched in 2014 and has already trained nearly 250 first and second PittPharmacy students. Test2Learn™ puts PittPharmacy on the cutting edge of pharmacogenomics education.

Empey is an assistant professor in the pharmacy and therapeutics department at PittPharmacy.

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