The overall focus of my laboratory is in the research and development of chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer. The principal hypothesis is that a multi-drug therapeutic approach, combining vascular targeting and conventional oncolytic agents may be utilized to induce immediate tumor regression and/or facilitate long-term tumor dormancy. In pursuing this research, pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) principles will be utilized as a tool for the selection of novel therapeutic agents, design of rational drug delivery strategies to improve therapy, and elucidation of mechanisms underlying drug action. Passive and actively targeted drug delivery strategies, in particular nanoparticulate drug carriers (e.g., small, long-circulating liposomes), will be engineered with maximal drug capacity and various release profiles to achieve optimal exposure at the target site, while limiting systemic toxicity by minimizing delivery to reactive non-target tissues.
Our immediate objective is to test hypotheses that alteration in tumor vasculature function or growth using antiangiogenic agents or low-dose sustained exposure to chemotherapeutic agents (referred to as metronomic or antiangiogenic dosing), can be used to improve cancer therapy. PK/PD analysis and modeling is used to derive exposure-response relationships and support the development of rational multi-drug therapies. Laboratory activities will encompass late-stage drug discovery and preclinical (in vitro/in vivo) research with the aim of enabling translation of findings into early clinical development.
|
|
|
pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, physical pharmacy, drug delivery, anti-vascular/angiogenic, cancer chemotherapy, drug transport, PK/PD modeling, biopharmaceutics, targeted delivery, nano-particles
|
