Pharmaceutical Sciences Department
Ingenuity in Drug Development and Delivery Starts Here.
Drug development and delivery require inventiveness and out-of-the-box thinkers unafraid to research at the edge. Our field of research, aims to optimize the delivery of drugs to the body, including how they are absorbed, distributed, metabolized and excreted to develop novel and improved therapies to fight human diseases.
What Type of Research Happens in Drug Development and Delivery?
We conduct our research utilizing nanotechnology, innovative computational tools, statistical strategies, simulation models and advanced high-throughput methods
Characterization of membrane transporters and how they relate to drug design, delivery and targeting
Chemical and physical integrity of drugs and dosage forms
Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs
Mechanisms of how drugs cross membranes and barriers
Methods of monitoring drugs and controlling levels of drugs in the body, including developing biosensors
Targeted and controlled release of drugs
Targeted gene delivery
Quantitative relationships between chemical (e.g., stability) and physical (e.g., solubility) behaviors of drugs and their chemical structures
Meet the Department Chair
Our team is led by Anna Schwendeman, PhD, Larry and Ann Hsu Professor, College of Pharmacy, whose research interests focus on understanding the mechanisms of how phospholipid composition of HDL affects its potency and designing short synthetic peptides that mimic various functions of Apolipoprotein A-I, the main protein component of HDL. She co-founded and is the co-Director at the Center for Research on Complex Generics. She has several ongoing translational collaborative projects focused on assessing sHDL utility for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, sepsis, acute lung injury, lupus and diabetic nephropathy. Finally, she is active in developing science-based regulations for testing complex parenteral products such as nanoparticles, recombinant proteins and microspheres and has grants from the American Heart Association and the Food and Drug Administration to support her research.
