Hein Lab
Sidebar
About
Dr. Hein serves as Peter K. Knoefel Endowed Chair of Pharmacology, Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of Louisville. He also serves as Deputy Director of the UofL Hepatobiology and Toxicology CoBRE and Director of the Research Experiences and Training Coordination core of the UofL Superfund Research Center. He served as Director of the NIEHS T32 predoctoral and postdoctoral training program in environmental health sciences from 2004-2024 and continues to serve as multi-PI of the training grant. He served as Director of the NCI UofL Cancer Education Program from 2012-2025. Numerous undergraduate, medical, graduate, and postdoctoral students have completed research training in his laboratory.
Dr. Hein serves on several international expert panels related to N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2) gene nomenclature, NAT2 allele function, and implementation of pharmacogenomic-guided drug therapy for drugs metabolized by NAT2. Dr. Hein’s research program incorporates precision environmental health and precision medicine. This includes research in personalized medicine and individual susceptibility to environmental diseases. Research in molecular epidemiology identifies individuals genetically susceptible to the development of cancer and other diseases from environmental and occupational chemicals to focus treatment and prevention public health strategies on those at greatest risk. Research in pharmacogenetics/genomics and personalized/precision medicine improves our understanding of the genetic causes for drug failure and/or drug toxicity to optimize clinical drug therapy for each individual patient. Research in functional genomics improves understanding of the mechanistic and clinical consequences of genetic variation in the biotransformation of environmental chemicals, carcinogens, and drugs. The research program has been funded by grants and contracts from the National Institutes of Health and other federal and private foundations and industry. He has coauthored over 1000 scholarly and creative works including invited presentations in Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and across the USA.
