The Drug Delivery Core continues a longstanding tradition in education, research, and outreach in pharmaceutical sciences. Research in physical pharmacy was first initiated at our School of Pharmacy, and today the Drug Delivery Core strives to offer exemplary training that emphasizes fundamental principles in physical chemistry and drug transport, aiming for advances in formulation, drug targeting, and multi-modal therapy.
- We carry out internationally-recognized research in solid state chemistry of drugs, nanomedicine, biocompatibility, molecular recognition, computational chemistry, pharmacokinetics and molecular imaging. Our research involves developing better treatment for a variety of diseases including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and infectious diseases and is funded by federal (e.gs. NIH/NSF), foundation (e.g. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), and industry sources. Our research is supported through state-of-the-art instrumentation and other resources available through the Lachman Institute for Pharmaceutical Development and other facilitates on campus. Our trainees are recognized for their research accomplishments through honors such as invitations to participate in prestigious meetings, awards for travel to and presentations at conferences, foundation awards and fellowships, and selection for highly competitive internships.
- We offer an interdisciplinary curriculum that reveals the multi-faceted nature of the process of drug development buttressed by strengths in drug discovery and drug action, recognizing that major breakthroughs in the pharmaceutical sciences will require interdisciplinary teams.
- We foster relationships with the pharmaceutical industry and other universities to strengthen research and education in our graduate program through collaborative projects, mentorship, internships, study abroad programs, offering unique opportunities for career advancement. Our trainees develop many skills relevant to the modern pharmaceutical scientist that allow them to be sought after for positions in industry, academia, and other sectors.
- We support outreach in the Division of Pharmacy Professional Development and active participation in national and international organizations including the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the Controlled Release Society, the Society of Biomaterials, and the American Chemical Society. We interact and consult for the school’s Zeeh Pharmaceutical Experiment Station.
Drug Delivery faculty research interests:
- Pharmacokinetics & pharmacodynamics; psychoactive substances; development of analytical methods to detect psychoactive substances in various biological matrices. (Barkholtz)
- Biomedical nanotechnology; molecular imaging (mostly positron emission tomography and multimodal); image-guided drug delivery; theranostics; translational research; tumor targeting; cancer diagnosis/therapy; imaging of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. (Cai)
- Developing novel nanometer and micrometer sized drug delivery systems. Application of layer-by-layer selfassembly, dendrimers, halloysite and calixarenes in drug delivery and drug solubilization. (deVilliers)
- Multidisciplinary work bridging engineering with materials science, chemistry, and the life sciences – including drug delivery, nanomedicine, gene and genome editing therapy, immunotherapy, antimicrobial materials, and tissue engineering. (Gong)
- Radiochemistry applications in biomedical research; Targeted radionuclide therapy–theranostics; Radio-immunooncology; Neutron capture therapy (Hernandez)
- Biomimetic nanotechnology; Nanomaterial-cell interactions; Targeted drug delivery; Cancer immunotherapy; Cancer diagnostics/prognostics; Surface engineering. (Hong)
- Leveraging delivery approaches to address current clinical challenges and facilitate translational research by integrating cell therapy, immunotherapy and personalized therapy. (Hu)
- Tumor targeting; Long-acting injectables; polymeric micelles; polymer-peptide conjugates. (Kwon)
- Di- and tri-block copolymers in drug delivery and imaging; 19F-MRI; nanotechnologies in cancer therapy; immunotherapies; molecular recognition of RNA. (Mecozzi)
- Design and development of tumor targeted molecular agents for imaging, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy oncology applications. (Weichert)
- Pharmaceutical materials science; solid-state chemistry; amorphous pharmaceuticals; molecular glasses; crystallization; polymorphism; surface mobility; polymeric crystallization inhibitors. (Yu)
Pharmsci Research Cores
Drug Delivery Faculty
Heather Barkholtz, Weibo Cai, Melgardt de Villiers, Shaoqin Sarah Gong, Reinier Hernandez, Seungpyo Hong, Quanyin Hu, Glen Kwon, Sandro Mecozzi, Jamey Weichert, and Lian Yu