Supporting the clinical services of the pharmacy, our comprehensive pharmacy research program overall aims to optimise medication-related outcomes through quality use of medicines (QUM) in cancer care, and specifically, to:
- Improve the knowledge base for safe and effective use of medicines, including predicting and improving the way that medicines work (pharmacogenomics, pharmacology, and pharmacodynamics) and how they are handled in the body (pharmacokinetics)
- Improve safety systems for medicines use
- Improve information for patients and clinicians about cancer medicines
- Develop, implement, and evaluate innovative roles for pharmacists and pharmacy related technologies
- Determine and improve cost-effective use of medicines (pharmacoeconomics)
Pharmacy research focus
Our five areas of research focus sit under the research domains of health services, clinical and discovery/laboratory research:
Focus areas of research
- Precision medicine – pharmacogenomics, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, therapeutic drug monitoring, biomarkers
- Medicines use optimisation – targeted high risk, high impact medicines and patients
- Education innovation: workforce training and development
- Medicines adherence and patient education
- Compounding and physiochemical testing – stability of admixtures
Health services research
- Access, quality, costs and outcomes of health care
- Systematic identification of best available evidence and evidence synthesis
- Mixed methods knowledge translation, registry and real-world effectiveness studies
- Pragmatic/hybrid randomised controlled trials
- Pharmacoeconomics for new drugs/technologies
Clinical research
- Safety and efficacy of treatments and regimens for disease prevention, treatment, diagnosis, or symptom management
- Studying people, either through direct interaction or collection and analysis of blood, tissues or other samples
- Interventional drug and observational correlative studies i.e., tissue, biomarker, or genetic profiling
Discovery/laboratory research
- Safety and compatibility of compounded cancer oncology medications
- Driving innovation in cancer and oncology medication compounding
- Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic/pharmacogenomic analyses
- Pre-clinical and stability and compatibility studies
Pharmacy research projects
Current
- Patterns and outcomes of infections in patients with lung cancer in the current era
- PhaRmacogEnomiC medIcines optimiSatIoN for peOple with caNcer (PRECISION)
- Predict trial: A study to describe the feasibility of therapeutic drug monitoring of 5FU in cancer treatment
- Pharmacogenomics and pharmacokinetic guided dosing of anticancer therapies for patients with cancer (PhD project)
- Risk prediction of immune-related adverse events with the use of cancer immunotherapies (PhD project)
- Personalised medicine strategies in cancer care (PhD project)
- Palliative care prescribers’ perceptions of the pharmacist’s role in deprescribing: A mixed methods study (Masters project)
- Pharmacokinetic-based modelling software versus trough level and renal function guided vancomycin dosing in hospitalised cancer patients (DoseMeRx)
- Prevalence of psychotropic medicines use at Peter Mac
- Insulin audit in the electronic medical record (EMR)
- Sexuality and cancer care
- Target Thromboprophylaxis (TP) Trial
- AUstralian Registry and biObank of thoRAcic cancers (AURORA)C-SMART – prevention of COVID-19 by use of medicated nasal spray
- RCT of treatments for sleep during chemotherapy
- Infective outcomes with subcutaneous versus intravenous formulations of trastuzumab and rituximab for the treatment of cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis
- A failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) in a large clinical trials pharmacy department to identify risks pre- and post-implementation of an electronic investigational drug system (e-IDS)
- Investigating hospital pharmacy staff research behaviours and acceptability of workforce interventions to build research capacity
- Pilot study of prophylactic cefazolin pharmacokinetics in abdominal cancer surgery, including surgery with heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy
- Efficacy and safety of intravenous ketamine in chronic cancer pain - a retrospective study
- Motivational Interviewing Training Platform (MITP) for oncology clinicians
- The need for effective digital solutions to enhance adherence to oral anti-cancer medicines in adults: a systematic review of reviews
- A beta-testing of SAMSON mobile health application (Safety and Adherence to Medications and Self-care advice in Oncology) on patients with cancer
- Perioperative technician role – surgical time saver
Pharmacy research contact
Associate Professor Safeera Hussainy - Senior Pharmacy Research Manager
- Email:
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