NIPER, S.A.S. Nagar A Step Closer To Precision Medicine
Mayur Kathadbhai Ladumor, a Ph.D. scholar under the mentorship of Prof. Saranjit Singh at Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis, NIPER, S.A.S. Nagar (Mohali) brought laurels to the institute by getting selected for the predoctoral poster presentation at 22nd North American International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics (ISSX) meeting, which was held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from July 2018. Mayur is one of the six Ph.D. students selected for the poster presentation across the world and was also presented with the ‘Travel grant award’ to attend the meeting.
Mayur has been involved in the development of an open access repository of drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters (DMET) in collaboration with Dr. Bhagwat Prasad, Assistant Professor (Department of Pharmaceutics, University of Washington, Seattle, USA). Dr. Prasad is also an alumni of Departemt of Pharmaceutical analysis at NIPER, S.A.S. Nagar, and is closely involved in this collaborative work. It is interesting to note that the abundance of these DMET vary with age, sex, ethnicity and genotype and hence directly affect the biological behaviour of the drug in a person-specific manner. This has shifted the focus of world’s renowned scientists to explore the science of ‘Precision medicine’. The core of precision medicine revolves around 4R’s, i.e., Right drug, Right person, Right dose and at Right time. For the actualization of this great idea, various scientists have introduced softwares based on the concept of physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modelling and simulation. GastroPlusTM (Simulations Plus, Lancaster, California, USA) is one such software, available to NIPER in collaboration with Dr. Michael Bolger (Chief Scientist, Simulations Plus, Inc.). The DMET abundance database developed at NIPER upon integration with GastroPlusTM software can be used to predict the right dose of the drug in patients. Conventionally, the dosing of the drugs is based on the clinical trials performed in humans in accordance with regulatory guidelines (USFDA, EMA and MHRA), requiring exorbitant money, time and resources along with posing danger to human life. With the help of this software, such clinical trials can be replaced very efficiently. Needless to say that NIPER always ensures to match the pace of cutting edge research occurring in the world.
Vijay K. Sharma
PR Cell, NIPER Mohali
95920-95994
