Mary Paine

Education

• BS, Pharmacy, Oregon State University
• PhD, Pharmaceutics, University of Washington
• Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Clinical Pharmacology, University of Michigan

About Me

I am a clinical pharmacologist with expertise in pharmacokinetics. Pharmacokinetics is the study of how the body absorbs, distributes, metabolizes (breaks down) and excretes drugs. Understanding the pharmacokinetics of drugs and factors that can change their pharmacokinetics is critical to the process of developing new drugs. I am a participating instructor for three courses in the PharmD curriculum, which include Pharmacokinetics (PharDSci 528), Integrated Pharmacology II (PharDSci 512), and Integrated Pharmacology III (PharDSci 532), and am the course director and primary instructor for the PhD course, Principles and Applications in Pharmacokinetics and Toxicokinetics (PharmSci 573).

My research group studies how natural products, which include everyday foods and botanical dietary supplements, can change the pharmacokinetics of drugs. Such natural product-drug interactions can lead to increased or decreased concentrations of the drug in the blood or tissues, which can further lead to unwanted side effects or reduced desired effects. We investigate these complex interactions using a translational approach encompassing established human-derived experimental systems, mathematical models describing the effects of natural products on the pharmacokinetics of drugs and clinical studies involving human volunteers.

I am a pharmacist, researcher and educator. Wearing these three “hats,” the long-term goals for my research program are to make sure people are taking natural products with their drugs in a safe manner, standard approaches are developed about how best to study natural product-drug interactions, and that evidence-based information is provided to students in the health care professions.

I was in high school when I decided I wanted to be a pharmacist. I remember sitting at the top of a hill on my parents’ Christmas tree farm located near Corvallis, Oregon, and the idea suddenly came to me. I liked and performed well in math, chemistry, and biology and thought pharmacy would be good to pursue. I became interested in research while a pharmacy student at Oregon State University (OSU), when I worked part time in a wheat research laboratory. My father was a professor of forestry at OSU, who inspired me to pursue a career in academia. During my three years working as a hospital pharmacist, I continually reflected upon these experiences and inspiration, which eventually led me to pursue a PhD in the pharmaceutical sciences. The rest is history!

In my spare time I like to…

I enjoy spending time with family, traveling, cooking, wine tastings, taking long walks, and clothes shopping.

Why WSU?

I was recruited to WSU by our former dean, Dr. Gary Pollack, who was one of my mentors while we were both at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I decided to join WSU for two main reasons: to help rebuild a college of pharmacy and return to my native Northwest to be closer to family.

My Favorite Quote

“The perfect is the enemy of the good.” -Voltaire

Selected Publications

Paine MF, Shen DD, Kunze KL, Perkins JD, Marsh CL, McVicar JP, Barr DM, Gillies BS, Thummel KE. First-pass metabolism of midazolam by the human intestine. Clin Pharmacol Ther 60:14-24, 1996.

Paine MF, Khaligi M, Fisher JM, Shen DD, Kunze KL, Marsh CL, Perkins JD, Thummel KE. Characterization of interintestinal and intraintestinal variations in human CYP3A-dependent metabolism. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 283:1552-62, 1997.

Paine MF, Hart HL, Ludington SS, Haining RL, Rettie AE, Zeldin DC. The human intestinal cytochrome P450 “pie”. Drug Metab Dispos 34:880-6, 2006.

Paine MF, Widmer WW, Hart HL, Pusek SN, Beavers KL, Criss AB, Brown SS, Thomas BF, Watkins PB. A “furanocoumarin-free” grapefruit juice establishes furanocoumarins as the mediators of the grapefruit juice-felodipine interaction. Am J Clin Nutr 83:1097-105, 2006.

Ngo N, Yan Z, Graf TN, Carrizosa DR, Kashuba AD, Dees EC, Oberlies NH, Paine MF. Identification of a cranberry juice product that inhibits enteric CYP3A-mediated first-pass metabolism in humans. Drug Metab Dispos 37:514-22, 2009. PMCID: PMC2650736.

Gufford BT, Barr JT, González-Peréz V, Layton ME, White JR, Oberlies NH, Paine MF. Quantitative prediction and clinical evaluation of an unexplored herb-drug interaction mechanism in healthy volunteers. CPT Pharmacometrics Syst Pharmacol 4:701-10, 2015. PMCID: PMC4759704.

Johnson EJ, González-Peréz V, Tian DD, Lin YS, Unadkat JD, Rettie AE, Shen DD, McCune JS, Paine MF. Selection of priority natural products for evaluation as potential precipitants of natural product-drug interactions: A NaPDI Center Recommended Approach. Drug Metab Dispos 46:1046-52, 2018. PMCID: PMC6003438.

Cox EJ, Maharo N, Patilea-Vrana G, Unadkat JD, Rettie AE, McCune JS, Paine MF. A marijuana-drug interaction primer: Precipitants, pharmacology, and pharmacokinetics. Pharmacol Ther 201:25-38, 2019. PMCID: PMC6708768.

Paine MF. Natural products: experimental approaches to elucidate disposition mechanisms and predict pharmacokinetic drug interactions. Drug Metab Dispos. 48:956-962, 2020. PMID: 32816868

Tanna RS, Tian DD, Cech NB, Oberlies NH, Rettie AE, Thummel KE, Paine MF. Refined prediction of pharmacokinetic kratom-drug interactions: time-dependent inhibition. J Pharmacol Exp Ther. 2020 Oct 22:JPET-AR-2020-000270. doi: 10.1124/jpet.120.000270. Online ahead of print. PMID: 33093187