Abbie D. Leino, PharmD, PhD

I am a pharmacologist with research interests in precision dosing, solid organ transplantation and oncology. My interest in this work stems from taking care of transplant patients in the clinic and seeing how every patient had a different response to the immunosuppressive drugs. Some experienced rejection despite having therapeutic drug levels, while others had side effects that kept them from enjoying life.

My goal is to develop precision dosing tools that can be more quickly and easily translated into practice using implementation science, with a focus on incorporating the patient and family perspective. My research aims to identify and incorporate sources of variability in drug exposure and response to provide individualized drug doses that improve outcomes by maximizing efficacy while reducing toxicity.

Some of my accomplishments include the development of an analytical assay and clinical tools to improve therapeutic drug monitoring in solid organ transplantation by allowing patients to collect the needed blood samples at home. This includes using a lancet device to obtain small, dried blood samples from their arm and mobile technology to improve adherence and accuracy. Providing multiple samples in the same day using this technique can improve the accuracy with which we dose immunosuppressive drugs.

I have been a researcher for over 10 years and began working at Cincinnati Children's in 2024. I was honored to receive the New Investigator Award from the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Transplant Practice and Research Network.