L'Aurelle Johnson, Ph.D.

Early in her training as a basic scientist in pharmacology, L’Aurelle Johnson “felt that something was missing.” That something “was the direct application of my work into a clinical setting,” she says. So, following her pharmacology training from the University of Michigan, Johnson joined the University of Minnesota as a post-doctoral fellow in pediatric cancer epidemiology in the Medical School’s Department of Pediatrics. Under multidisciplinary mentorship, Johnson studied the clinical applications of pharmacology, particularly as related to childhood cancer. Her studies examined the pharmacogenetics of various treatments in pediatric cancers and also confirmed her interest in clinical research.

Johnson, now an assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy, is excited about pursuing her own research program through the CAPS program. Specifically, she will conduct a cross-sectional analysis on the effect of childhood obesity on drug metabolism enzyme activities. “Overweight children tend to have poorer cancer treatment outcomes, and while we know that obesity affects how a body handles drugs, the study of drug metabolism in obese children is an understudied area of research,” she says. In addition, lipid accumulation and obesity is a particular problem in pediatric cancer patients because of the high-dose glucocorticoid regimen they receive as part of their therapy—creating a precarious balance between drug efficacy and drug toxicity in this patient population.

The first step in Johnson’s research will be to examine healthy children. Children will be followed longitudinally as they go through a weight management program to determine how weight influences phase 1 and phase 2 drug metabolism enzyme function. “Once we understand what is going on in obese children in terms of drug metabolism of enzymes, we can begin to examine pediatric cancer patients,” she explains. Her mentors in the CAPS program—Pamala Jacobson, Pharm.D., and Timothy Tracy, Ph.D., College of Pharmacy; Julie Ross, Ph.D., and Antoinette Moran, M.D., Medical School; and Melanie Wall, Ph.D., School of Public Health—provide a multidisciplinary perspective to her research.

Johnson is grateful for her basic science background, which allows her to pursue translational research. “I am interested in taking what is going on in the clinic, going back to the bench, and then taking those findings back to the clinic” to help inform treatment, she says.