Drug researcher to speak at UVa-Wise April 22

Mark Anderson, an associate research investigator at Abbott Laboratories, will discuss “Mechanisms of idiosyncratic drug toxicities: Insights from microarray anlaysis” April 22 at The University of Virginia’s College at Wise. The event, which is free and open to the public, begins at 1 p.m. in the Science Center.

Anderson, who earned his Ph.D. in molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University, will discuss his efforts to understand how therapeutic drugs can sometimes adversely affect the liver.

Drug-induced toxicity remains a major barrier in the development of new therapeutic agents. The majority of drug candidates that cause toxicity are screened out in the discovery or development stage. Some, however, are not detected until the drug is in late-stage clinical trials or has become available to the public. Quite often, this is caused by what is called an idiosyncratic drug response, which often, but not in all cases, targets the liver. Clearly, an understanding of the mechanisms that lead to idiosyncratic liver toxicity would be extremely beneficial for the development of new compounds.

Anderson and his fellow researchers at Abbott Laboratories have used RNA expression patterns in isolated human liver cells to understand the mechanisms underlying the idiosyncratic toxicity induced by the quinolone drug, trovafloxacin. Their results clearly distinguish trovafloxacin from other marketed anti-bacterial quinolone agents and identify unique gene changes induced by trovafloxacin that are involved in mitochondrial damage, RNA processing and inflammation that may suggest a mechanism for the liver toxicity induced by this agent.

Researchers were able to further exploit these findings and identify an oxidative stress assay that distinguished trovafloxacin from the other quinolones. This work establishes the basis for future RNA expression analysis of new compounds to determine the presence of these expression changes and their utility in predicting idiosyncratic liver toxicity.

For more information, contact the Office of College Relations at 276-328-0130.