Pharmacology Core

Core Mission

The mission of the Pharmacology Core is to provide state-of-the-art analytical technology and a broad range of pharmacology expertise to enable evaluation of critical pharmacological endpoints in clinical trials and preclinical studies. 

Overview of Services

The Pharmacology Core offers the following services based on fee-for-service:

• Biospecimen Processing providing a centralized resource for the acquisition, processing, and shipment of patient samples including blood, plasma, urine, peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC), bone marrow, and tissue samples.  All biospecimens are collected from patients who provided informed consent following an Institutional Review Board approved protocol.  Specimen handling, processing, and shipment are in compliance with good laboratory practice procedures, approved standard operating procedures, and regulatory requirements to ensure sample integrity and quality.  A secure database that includes detailed information on the acquisition, processing, distribution of the samples along with related clinical data is maintained.

• Bioanalysis providing development, validation, and implementation of analytical methods using high or ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC or UPLC) coupled with tandem mass spectrometer (LC-MS/MS), ultraviolet, photodiode array, or fluorescence detector for quantitative measurement of drugs, metabolites, or endogenous compounds in biological samples (e.g., biofluid, tissue, or cell culture samples).  Method validation is provided based on the Food and Drug Administration Guidance for Bioanalytical Method Validation to ensure that a particular method is specific, sensitive, reliable, reproducible, and suitable for the intended analytical use.  Rigorous quality assurance and quality control are provided for measurements of clinical and preclinical samples.

In addition, the Core provides a broad range of pharmacology support on collaborative research project basis, including:

• Pharmacokinetic study design to assist study design for pharmacokinetic evaluation in clinical and preclinical studies

• Pharmacokinetic data analysis and modeling to characterize drug pharmacokinetics using traditional compartmental or non-compartmental analysis, nonlinear mixed-effect (population) pharmacokinetic modeling, or physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling approaches

•   In vitro drug metabolism studies to determine metabolic pathways and potential drug-drug interactions using liver microsomes, recombinant metabolizing enzymes, or cellular system

•   Metabolite identification to identify chemical structures of unknown metabolites using LC-MS/MS

• Drug plasma protein binding to determine binding of a drug to plasma proteins or blood cells using equilibrium dialysis method

Leadership

Core Director: Dr. Jing Li

Core Manager: Rich Wiegand MS ChE

Location and hours of operation

Links and Resources

1. Core Website: https://research1.karmanos.org/Research/Home2/Researchers2/CoreFacilities/Pharmacology.aspx
2. Fax: (313)576-8266
3. Getting Started in iLab

Contacts