Federico Innocenti, MD, PHD, an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been granted tenure. He is associate director of the School’s Center for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy.
Genes and Cancer
Innocenti’s NIH-funded research program focuses on the search for genetic variations in patients that determine the efficacy and toxicity of cancer therapy.
One of Innocenti’s notable research achievements is the discovery of the genetic basis for the neutropenia — or severe shortage of certain white blood cells — experienced by some patients being treated with the cancer drug irinotecan. This discovery led the FDA to change the labeling for the drug to include the genetic information, and Innocenti co-invented an FDA-approved genetic test to identify the variation in patients taking irinotecan.
Innocenti’s Career
The UNC professor has published more than 110 peer-reviewed publications in clinical pharmacology and pharmacogenomics. He serves the chair of the Gastrointestinal Solid Tumor Correlative Science Group with the Alliance of Clinical Trials in Oncology, and served as the chair of the Oncology Section of the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics for the last three years. In 2013 he received the prestigious Leon I. Goldberg Young Investigator Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.
Innocenti earned his MD from the University of Pisa in Italy in 1993, followed by residencies in clinical pharmacology and oncology. He earned a PhD in pharmacology, toxicology, and chemotherapy from the University of Pisa in 2002.
Innocenti joined the UNC faculty as an associate professor in 2011 after twelve years of research in cancer pharmacogenetics and teaching at the University of Chicago.
By Aren Besson