Helen E. Smith, RPh, MS, PhD

Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences

Dr. Smith is a Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Feik School of Pharmacy (FSOP). Dr. Smith teaches in the FSOP introductory pharmacology, renal, and oncology Pharmacotherapeutic courses as well as offering general toxicology and clinical toxicology electives. She has a special interest in the development of toxicology and pharmacogenomics curriculum appropriate for pharmacy students, and providing them with opportunities to conduct translational research in those topic areas.

Dr. Smith serves on several FSOP committees.  as well as being the chair of the UIW Internal Review Board, a member of the UIW Sustainability Committee, and a member of the Faculty Senate. She also serves as Faculty Advisor to Phi Delta Chi and NCPA. While she has been at FSOP, she has assisted in the development of the San Antonio MedDropSA medication disposal project, published articles in Pharmacogenetics and Genomics, Specialty Pharmacy Times, and in the Pharmacy Review, published a module in PharmGenEd, presented to the local chapter of the American Chemical Society, taken part in a panel discussion session entitled “ End of Drug Lifecycle: What happens once ADME is completed?”, and authored a chapter in the text “Pharmacogenomics and Pharmacy Practice” She has been awarded several internal grants.

 Dr. Smith completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Pharmaceutics in the University of Washington, Seattle, WA where she conducted pharmacogenomic clinical studies. While a post-doc, she was a co-instructor for a graduate level Journal Club course 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, a case in the Textbook of Therapeutics: Drug and Disease Management, co-authorship in Appendix II: Design and Optimization of Dosage Regiments: Pharmacokinetic Data in Goodman & Gilman’s the Pharmacological basis of Therapeutics, and Chapter 8: Polymorphisms in Xenobiotic Conjugation in Gene-Environment Interactions: Fundamentals of Ecogenetics. Results from one of her projects were presented at the 14th North American International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics, Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.

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. She presented findings from her doctoral 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 and 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.