Kim. L. R. Brouwer, Pharm.D., Ph.D., will be honored by the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics as the recipient of the 2018 ASCPT and US Food and Drug Administration William B. Abrams Lecture Award.
Brouwer is the associate dean for research and graduate education and the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
The William B. Abrams Lecture is a joint educational initiative of ASCPT and the FDA. The lecture series, supported in part by the Merck Company Foundation, was established in 1999 to honor William B. Abrams, M.D., an ASCPT president from 1975 to 1976.
Brouwer’s lecture is titled, “Altered Hepatic Transport Due to Liver Disease and Drug Interactions: Implications for Drug Development” and will take place on Wednesday, May 23.
Transport proteins mediate the hepatic uptake and excretion of many endogenous and exogenous compounds including bile acids, drugs and metabolites. Liver disease, such as nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, and drug interactions can markedly impact hepatic transporter function and drug disposition, which may influence the efficacy and toxicity of medications.
In her lecture, Brouwer will review hepatic transporters that play a critical role in bile acid homeostasis in humans, including the novel basolateral efflux transporter OSTα/β. She will highlight the application of mechanistic modeling and simulations based on data generated in human sandwich-cultured hepatocytes to assess the impact of drug interactions (induction or inhibition) on hepatocellular bile acid exposure. She will discuss the interplay between bile acid exposure, hepatic transporter dynamics, and regulation of transporters to protect hepatocytes from bile acid-mediated toxicity. Human-relevant cell-based systems and computational approaches, including systems pharmacology modeling, are valuable tools that drug development scientists can use to identify compounds with cholestatic potential, and to predict susceptibility factors for drug-induced liver injury.
For more than 10 years, ASCPT and the FDA have invited experts from academia, industry, and government to discuss advances in clinical pharmacology and drug development. These scientists have excelled in their specialty areas and are some of the most highly esteemed clinical pharmacologists in the field.
The American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics was founded in 1900 and consists of over 2,300 professionals whose primary interest is to advance the science and practice of clinical pharmacology and translational medicine for the therapeutic benefit of patients and society. ASCPT is the largest scientific and professional organization serving the disciplines of clinical pharmacology and translational medicine.