Kenan Distinguished Professor Kim L.R. Brouwer, Pharm.D., Ph.D., delivered the 2017 John C. Krantz, Jr. Lecture at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia on April 6.
Brouwer is the associate dean for research and graduate education at UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and was selected to give the 30th annual Krantz Lecture on Research Day at University of the Sciences. The topic of her presentation was “Advancing Precision Medicine with the Science of Drug Transporters.”
Recent advances in the science of drug transporters have revealed that these proteins play key roles in the absorption, distribution and excretion of many medications and contribute to patient variability in drug response, Brouwer said. Patient-specific disease and genetic factors may alter the expression and function of drug transporters, thereby impacting drug efficacy and safety.
Drug transporters may be the site of clinically important drug interactions or adverse drug reactions such as hepatotoxicity. Brouwer discussed innovative in vitro and in vivo tools that can be used to assess transporter function. Along with mathematical modeling and simulation, these tools can facilitate the development of individualized dosing recommendations to achieve maximal therapeutic benefit in individual patients.
In addition, systems pharmacology models integrating physiology and experimental data can evaluate transporter-mediated toxicity mechanisms, and identify risk factors for adverse events in humans. These cutting-edge advances in clinical pharmacology and drug transporter science will enable more precise tailoring of medicines for optimal treatment of every patient, the ultimate goal of precision medicine.
Brouwer directs an NIH-funded research program focused on hepatobiliary drug disposition, hepatic transport proteins, and development and refinement of in vitro models to predict in vivo hepatic drug disposition, drug interactions and hepatotoxicity. She was founding director of the UNC Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics Fellowship Program and is co-PI of an NIH-funded postdoctoral T32 training program in clinical pharmacology. She has mentored 40 clinical pharmacology fellows, 25 postdoctoral fellows/visiting scholars, 34 doctoral students, 23 undergraduate/honors students and published more than 200 research papers, reviews and book chapters.
Brouwer is co-inventor of B-CLEAR®, an in vitro method to assess hepatobiliary disposition that correlates with in vivo data, and is co-founder of Qualyst Transporter Solutions, a UNC spin-off company.