Careers

Would you be interested in driving a macrophage-targeted, collaborative drug development effort between the Medical School and the College of Pharmacy? We are looking for people who are interested in subcellular drug transport and targeting; drug delivery; drug discovery and development; as well as the following: macrophage biology, innate immunity, redox signaling, inflammation, microbial infection, microscopic imaging, pharmacokinetics, etc. For an overview of our research, see https://pharmacy.umich.edu/rosania-lab

Why Macrophages?:

• Clofazimine is an anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and redox active antibiotic.
• Clofazimine is the most potent, cell type-specific, subcellular-targeting compound known.
• Clofazimine massively bioaccumulates in macrophages to form intracellular crystal-like drug inclusions upon long term (8 week) oral administration.

Why Clofazimine?:

• Discovered in 1957 by Dr. Vincent Barry (Ireland) as active against leprosy (originally considered ineffective against TB).
• Marketed as Lamprene by Novartis. In clinical use since 1960s.
• Recommended by WHO in combination chemotherapy against leprosy in 1980s.
• FDA approved in the US 1986 (used with special permission from CDC; IRB approval is needed for treatment of MDR-TB and other mycobacterial infections.)
• Currently entering 3 phaseII clinical trials and beginning a phase III clinical trial against multidrug resistant tuberculosis (http://www.tballiance.org/downloads/Pipeline/TBA-Pipeline-November-2012.pdf)