(3ef) Visualizing Drugs In Vitro and In Vivo - Application of Novel Chemistry for Drug Development | AIChE

(3ef) Visualizing Drugs In Vitro and In Vivo - Application of Novel Chemistry for Drug Development

Authors 

Thurber, G. M. - Presenter, Harvard Medical School / Mass General Hospital


Candidate Background

Post-Doctoral Training, Harvard Medical School

PhD in Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University

            Poor drug distribution in tissues has been implicated in treatment resistance for diseases such as cancer, where a large fraction of tumor cells are exposed to sub-therapeutic or even zero drug concentrations in vivo.  Due to the inherent difficulties in measuring drug concentrations in biological systems, it has been extremely difficult to determine the impact of this poor distribution on the treatment of cancer.  The inability to track small molecule drugs is a major reason why predictions of their distribution have lagged far behind macromolecules and nanoparticles.  In this presentation, I will elucidate our current efforts on visualizing drug distribution in live mice and three-dimensional reconstruction of ex vivo tumors providing a more realistic setting for studying cancer treatment.  Novel bio-orthogonal chemistry and small animal imaging is used to visualize the distribution of drugs on the microscopic scale.  Fundamental chemical engineering transport principles are used to describe the behavior of the drugs in biological systems.  These results provide the foundation for developing novel drugs and combination therapies with better tumoral distribution and efficacy.