Molecular pharmaceutics represents interdisciplinary specialties within the pharmaceutical sciences and encompasses a range of scientific endeavors, including:

• The design, fabrication, and evaluation of dosage forms and delivery strategies for conventional and biotechnology-based therapeutic agents
• Elucidation of barriers to systemic and target-specific drug delivery
• Determination of the ability of pharmacologic agents to reach the relevant site of biologic effect
• Determination of the time course of biologic activity

These areas of specialization represent critical steps in the development of new therapeutic agents, the evaluation of new and existing agents in a variety of settings (e.g., potential interactions with other agents or alterations secondary to physiologic changes associated with disease processes), and the optimal clinical use of pharmacologic agents.

See the division faculty page for more
information on our faculty and their research

• Current Research
  
• Recent Grants
  
• Recent Publications
• Recent Presentations
• Centers and Programs
• Resources
  
  

• Biomaterial Particulate Self-Assemblies for Pulmonary Aerosol Delivery
  Anthony J. Hickey and Heidi Mansour, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacture Fdn.1/01/07-12/31/08 $80,000
• Electrostatic Charging Phenomena in Dry Powder Inhalers and their Effect on Deposition
  Anthony J. Hickey and Martin Telko, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacture Fdn. 1/01/08-12/31/10 $40,000
• Interaction of Cationic Lipids with Dendritic Cells
  Leaf Huang, National Cancer Institute, 3/05/08 - 2/28/13, $1,506,414
• LPD Nanparticles in Anti-Cancer Therapy
  Leaf Huang, National Cancer Institute, 3/07/08 - 2/28/13, $1,505,096
• EGFR Targeted Nanoparticles to Overcome Paclitaxel Resistant Breast Cancer
  Russell J. Mumper, National Cancer Institute, 4/12/08 - 2/28/10, $235,901
• Formulation and cGMP Manufacturing of Vaginal Microbicidal Gels Containing Dendritic
  Russell J. Mumper, Starpharma, Limited Ltd. 1/16/08 - 8/31/09, $110,448
• Gene Therapy for Severe DMD Animal Model
  Xiao Xiao, National Institute of Arthritis Musculoskeletal Skin Disease, 1/29/08 - 3/31/09, $304,827
• Gene and Cell Therapy of Duchene Muscular Dystrophy
  Xiao Xiao, University of Pittsburgh and NIAMSD, 6/01/07-5/31/08, $307,876

• M.J. Cho
  Palma, E. and Cho, M.J.: Improved Systemic Pharmacokinetics, Biodistribution, and Antitumor Activity of CpG Oligodeoxynucleotides Complexed to Endogenous Antibodies in Vivo. J. Controlled Release 120:95-103, 2007.
• Anthony Hickey
  Telko, M.J., Hickey, A.J. Critical Assessment of Inverse Gas Chromatography as Means of Assessing Surface Free Energy and Acid-Base Interactions of Pharmaceutical Powders. Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (2007) Oct. 96 (10): 2647-54.
• Leaf Huang
  Li, S-D., Chono, S. and Huang, L.  Efficient Oncogene Silencing and Metastasis Inhibition via Systemic Delivery of siRNA.  Molecular Therapy. 16 (5):942 – 946, 2008.
• Michael Jay
  Zhu D, Lu X, Hardy PA, Leggas M and Jay M. Nanotemplate-Engineered Nanoparticles Containing Gadolinium for Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Tumors. Invest Radiol 43:129–140, 2008.
• Rudy Juliano
  Alam MR, Dixit V, Kang H, Li Z, Trejo J, Fisher M, Chen X and Juliano R. Intracellular delivery of an anionic antisense oligonucleotide via receptor mediated endocytosis. Nucleic Acids Research in press, 2008
  
• Richard J. Kowalsky
  Bandarenko N, Cancelas J, Synder EL, Hay SN, Rugg N, Corda T, Joines AD, Gormas JF, Kowalsky RJ, Rose M, Rose L, Foley J, Popovsky MA. Successful In Vivo Recovery and Extended Storage of Additive Solution (AS) – 5 Red Blood Cells after Deglycerolization and Resuspension in AS-3 for 15 days with an Automated Closed System. Transfusion 47: 680-686, 2007.
• Russell Mumper
  Patel JD, O’Carra R, Jones J, Woodward JG, and Mumper RJ. Preparation and Characterization of NickelNanoparticles for Binding to His-tag Proteins and Antigens. Pharm. Res. 24:343-352, 2007.

• Philip C. Smith
  Wen Z, Tallman MN, Ali SY and Smith PC.  UDP-glucuronosyltransferase 1A1 is the principal enzyme responsible for etoposide glucuronidation in human liver and intestinal microsomes: Structural characterization of phenolic and alcoholic glucuronides of etoposide and estimation of enzyme kinetics.  Drug Metab. Dispos. 35(3):371-380 (2007).

• Dhiren Thakker

 Proctor W. R., Bourdet, D. L., and Thakker, D. R. Mechanisms Underlying Saturable Intestinal Absorption of Metformin.  Drug Met Disp., in press (Fast Forward), 2008.

• Xiao Xiao
  Quenneville SP, Chapdelaine P, Skuk D, Paradis M, Goulet M, Rousseau J, Xiao X, Garcia L, Tremblay JP. (2007) Autologous transplantation of muscle precursor cells modified with a lentivirus for muscular dystrophy: human cells and primate models. Mol Ther. 2007 Feb;15(2):431-8.

• Anthony J. Hickey
  Formulation Screening to Achieve Performance Prediction of Pharmaceutical Dry Powder Aerosols.  Hickey, A.J., Mansour, H.M., Telko, M.J., Xu, Z., Smyth, H.D.C., Mulder, T., McLean, R., Langridge, J., and Papadopoulous, D. Journal of Aerosol Medicine-Drug Delivery to the Lungs XVII (2007) 20 (3) September: Article 10 p.369.  Abstract & Hickey oral presentation
  
  Characterization of Dry Powder Aerosols of Albuterol Sulfate and Cromolyn Sodium with Various Sugar Carriers     Delivered by Standardized Entrainment Tubes. Mansour, H.M., Xu, Z., and Hickey, A.J.  The AAPS Journal (2007) 9 (S2) W5234.  Abstract & Poster presentation at the AAPS Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA Nov 2007
  
  Characterization of Dry Powder: Aerosols of Albuterol Sulfate/Lactose Monohydrate and Cromolyn Sodium/Lactose Monohydrate Delivered by Standardized Entrainment Tubes.  Xu, Z., Mansour, H.M., Mulder, T., McLean, R., Langridge, J., and Hickey, A.J. The AAPS Journal (2007) 9 (S2) W5235.  Abstract & Poster Presentation at the AAPS Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA Nov 2007
  
  Comparative Dispersion Study of Dry Powder Aerosols of Albuterol Sulfate/Lactose Monohydrate and Cromolyn Sodium/Lactose Monohydrate Delivered by Standardized Entrainment Tubes. Xu, Z., Mansour, H.M., Mulder, T., McLean, R., Langridge, J., and Hickey, A.J.Respiratory Drug Delivery (2008) (IN PRESS).  Paper Publication and Poster Presentation at RDD 2008, Arizona.
• Russell J. Mumper
  Characterization and Comparison of In-vitro Anti-Cancer Effects of Different Anthocyanin-Rich Blackberry Extracts
  Jin Dai, Anshul Gupte, Lauren Gates and Russell J. Mumper . Poster Presentation at the AAPS Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, Nov 2007.
  
• Philip C. Smith
   "Absolute Quantification of Uridine Diphosphate Glucuronosyl Transferase (UGT) Enzyme Isoforms 1A1 and 1A6 by tandem LC-MS."  John Fallon, Dave Harbourt, Saber Malecki, Fay Kessler, Joe Ritter and Philip Smith
  RTP-DMDG, March 5, 2008, Raleigh, NC
  
  "Stability of Mycophenolic Acid Acyl Glucuronide in Biological Matrices."  Dave Harbourt, Melanie Joy and Philip Smith
  Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting, March 16-20, Seattle, WA
  
  "Stability of Mycophenolic Acid Acyl Glucuronide in Biological Matrices."
  Dave Harbourt, Melanie Joy and Philip Smith
  Gordon Research Conference on Drug Metabolism, July 6-11, Holderness, NH
• Dhiren Thakker
  Ming, X., Knight, B., and Thakker, D. R. Involvement of Multidrug Resistance-associated Proteins (MRPs) in Intestinal Transport of the Anti-allergic Drug Fexofenadine, AAPS Transporter Meeting, 2007.
  
  Proctor, W., and Thakker, D. R. Saturable Absorptive Transport of Metformin across Caco-2 Cell Monolayers Occurs Predominantly via a Novel Paracellular Transport Mechanism, AAPS Transporter Meeting, 2007
  
  Knight, B., and Thakker, D. R. Transport/Metabolism Interplay for Loperamide and Terfenadine in the CYP3A-Expressing Caco-2 Cell Model, AAPS Transporter Meeting, 2007.
  
  Klein, R. and Thakker, D. R. A role for phospholipase Cβ in the regulation of paracellular permeability in a human intestinal epithelial cell line. FASEB J. 21:729.8 2007.
  
  Klein, R.R., Bourdon, D.M., Wagner, C.D., White, W.L., Williams, J.D., and Thakker, D.R. Direct activation of human phospholipase Cβ3 (hPLCβ3) by U73122 in dodecylmaltoside (DDM) mixed micelles via alkylation at cysteine residues. FASEB J. 21:729.9 2007.