Therapeutics
 Prof Mike Roberts
Therapeutics Research Unit
Management of burn injury: fluid dynamics and antibiotic pharmacokinetics
When a patient is admitted to the intensive care unit with serious burns, the clinicians know that prevention of infection that could lead to organ failure and death is one of their highest priorities.75% of deaths due to burn injury have been shown to be due to infection. A major problem with these patients is that they do not handle drugs in the same way that a healthy person would.
Tissue space is increased by swelling and fluid retention, blood flow to tissues is altered and there are a number of other physiological changes occurring that could mean that usual doses of antibiotics are not giving the beneficial effects expected. In many cases simply measuring the plasma concentration of the antibiotic is not enough to tell us what is happening in other tissues or in the burn wound itself.
This project aims to determine how much antibiotic gets into a burn wound site compared to unburnt tissue, how these levels compare to the normal population, and which antibiotics may be the best at penetrating injured tissue where infection can be most dangerous. This information will help us in determining the best dosing schedules for antibiotics in burn patients and help reduce the levels of infection that can lead to much more serious complications and death.
Targeted drug delivery by topical application
There are many products sold today that are applied topically to the skin, including patches (nicotine, hormones), cream formulations (antiinflammatory and antihistamine creams, sunscreens) and sprays (insect repellents), for some kind of beneficial effect. However, the depth of penetration, onto, into or through the skin, of active ingredient required is often different in each case (eg sunscreens are required on the surface, antihistamine creams within the skin itself and nicotine and hormone patches required the drug to pass right through the skin into the blood stream).
The aim of this project is to understand how the different chemical structures of drugs, the ingredients in their formulations, the blood flow under the skin and the way in which they are applied combine to determine how deep a drug will penetrate. The outcomes of this work will help us in designing optimal therapeutic formulations for the future and also in minimising the risk of penetration for materials required to stay on the surface.
New Drugs to prevent heart attacks and stroke: syntheses, identification, characterisation, physiochemical properties determinations and pharmacological activities evaluation
This project seeks to define the optimal prototype in a range of “aspirin like” antithrombotic agents, which differ from aspirin in that these agents cause minimal gastro-toxicity and systemic prostaglandin inhibition when given orally. These agents are designed to inhibit platelet cyclooxygenase by acylation in the portal circulation and then be deactivated by a high metabolic first pass metabolism. It is proposed to study a group of agents, which minimise gastrotoxicity by two different mechanisms (increased lipophilicity and ionisation).
Topical peptide delivery for cosmetic and therapeutic benefits
Milk is a major Australian agricultural commodity and is now used in a number of topical products for the management of various skin conditions including chafing in babies, eczema and ageing skin. Hence, this work hopes to contribute to promoting and maintaining good health of Australians.
In addition, there is considerable research being conducted on peptide development for a range of diseases and there may be a possibility of delivering these by the skin.
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