Drug Design and Delivery Research

Several of our faculty are involved in areas of drug design and delivery. In the area of drug development, faculty use kinetic and cell based assays (Acey, Nakayama) or molecular recognition principles for drug development (Schramm). Others, inspired by naturally occurring biological molecules, biopolymers and protein-lipid assemblies, are engaged in designing novel transport and drug delivery vehicles (Shon, Slowinska), including the investigation of biomimetic transition metal nitrosyl complexes that have the potential to act as an NO-donor drug and/or to be delivered to a biological target (Li). In a complementary in silico approach, Molecular Dynamics simulations and docking calculations are employed to examine the structure, stability, and dynamics of biological molecules (Nakayama, Sorin), which confers a powerful predictive power to the drug development program.