Research Area

Pharmaceutics is comprised of the science of the design and evaluation of dosing regimens and dosage forms of drugs. Recently, a drug delivery system which optimizes drug affectiveness and minimizes aderse effects, by using some dosage forms, has been applied in the field of pharmaceutics. Our main research interest includes the improvement of intestinal absorption of poorly absorbed drugs such as peptides and protein drugs, transdermal delivery of drugs, regulation of transport of drugs and nutrients across the cell cultures by various endogenous substances, and the development of cancer immunotherapy using dendritic cells.

Of these projects, the oral delivery of poorly absorbed drugs including peptides and proteins is one of the most prominent in our laboratory. The low bioavailability of peptides is due to their extensive metabolic degradation and poor membrane permeability characteristics. We demonstrated that their poor absorption could be improved by their chemical modification with fatty acids, the use of absorption enhancers and protease inhibitors, and polymeric delivery systems. Recently, we have been trying to inhibit the function of P-glycoprotein(P-gp) by the addition of P-gp inhibitors in the apical site of the intestinal epithelium, thereby improving the intestinal absorption of P-gp substrates. In addition, we investigated the functional characteristics of the transport of drugs and nutrients and expression levels of transporters in various cultures cells. On the other hand, we recently demonstrated that efficient antigen gene transduction using RGD-mutant adenovirus vectors can potentiate antitumor vaccine efficacy and maturation of dendritic cells.

These approaches provide a basis for the development of novel drug delivery systems and the clinical application of drugs.