May 19, 2021
Imagine the possibility of using light to active therapeutics when treating diseases – reducing the potential harsh side effects of aggressive disease treatments used today.
That’s what Professor David Lawrence, Ph.D., at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy is focused on.
And a four-year $2,649,507 ROI grant from the National Institutes of Health will support his work, “Design and Application of Photoresponsive Modules in Circulating Erythrocytes.”
Lawrence and a team of researchers have developed a new technology that transforms drugs into light responsive “phototherapeutics” that are transported by circulating erythrocytes (red blood cells). Phototherapeutics offer the promise of targeted delivery at diseased sites with a potential reduction in unexpected side effects, Lawrence said.
The proposed research program seeks to assess the mechanism of drug release; optimized structural motifs for efficient drug delivery; drug scope; therapeutic efficacy; and optimized photo-delivery parameters.
“In 1908, the German physician/scientist Paul Ehrlich introduced the term ‘Magic Bullet’ to describe the concept of designing drugs that target invading microbes or a cancerous tumor while sparing the human host. Phototherapeutics represent a novel variant on Ehrlich’s vision for aiming drugs at diseased sites, but with photons as the magic bullets illuminating the path for therapeutic agents,” said Lawrence, a Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry at the School.
Collaborators on the project include: William Zamboni (Associate Professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy), Xianming Tan (Associate Professor of Biostatistics) and Billy Kim (Rush S. Dickson Distinguished Professor of Medicine).
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