Dr Betty Sallustio
Dr Sallustio was appointed to The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Department of Clinical Pharmacology in 1989 and was awarded her PhD in 1990. She is currently Principal Medical Scientist, contributing to the provision of therapeutic drug monitoring services, and additionally has developed and maintained an active teaching and research programme. In 1992 Dr Sallustio received affiliate status with the then Adelaide University Department of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology, and obtained her first major competitive grant, as sole Chief Investigator in 1993, funded by the National Heart Foundation.
Dr Sallustio’s area of research interests include drug metabolism and transport, particularly understanding how inter-individual differences in these processes, either genetic or environmental, impact on drug toxicity and clinical efficacy. She has pursued three main arms of research: i) the role of metabolism in enhancing drug toxicity, particularly intracellular protein and genetic damage; ii) applying an understanding of metabolic pathways and their genetic variability to enhance the clinical use of the anti-anginal agent perhexiline; and iii) applying an understanding of variability in the metabolism and cellular transport of immunosuppressants to improving clinical outcomes in renal transplant recipients. This work has been supported by major competitive funding from the National Heart Foundation (1993-94, 2004-05), the Anti Cancer Foundation (1998), the NHMRC (1997-99, 2003-05), and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (2006-10). Most recently Dr Sallustio was awarded a 3 year NHMRC Project Grant in collaboration with Dr Janet Coller, Prof Andrew Somogyi and AProf Ray Morris, to investigate the impact of both donor and recipient ABCB1, CYP3A and cytokine genetics on clinical outcomes in renal transplantation. The aim of this work is to develop a pharmacogenetic model to individualise immunosuppressant therapy and thus enhance long-term graft survival.
As an Affiliate Senior Lecturer, Dr Sallustio has also maintained a commitment to the teaching of Pharmacology and training of future research scientists. She provides lectures and supervises research projects in the undergraduate programs of the Discipline of Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide, is a member of the Discipline’s Honours assessment panel and supervises both Honours and Ph D students.
In addition, Dr Sallustio contributes to the local, national and international development of the discipline of pharmacology through participation in professional scientific bodies as well as peer review involvement. She is a long-standing member of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Clinical Trials Notification Committee, the Adelaide Pharmacology Group (serving as its Convenor), the Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists (serving on the Scientific Advisory Committee since 2007), the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology, and the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics.
She regularly reviews project grants for funding bodies such as the NHMRC, as well as reviewing manuscripts for international scientific journals. Dr Sallustio also currently serves on the editorial board of the Open Pharmacology Journal.