Raman Venkataramanan , PhD

Contact

718 Salk Hall

Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Phone: (724) 335-2000

Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Education:
PhD, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Master of Pharmacy, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India; Bachelor of Pharmacy, Madras Medical College, University of Madras, Madras India

Research Area(s):

Human Immunology

Clinical pharmacology in organ transplantation

The primary goal of our research has been to identify factors that regulate the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs in organ transplant patients in order to optimize drug therapy in this patient population. We are interested in investigating the process of absorption, distribution, transport (p-glycoprotein and other transporters), metabolism (phase 1 and phase 2 pathways) and excretion (biliary and renal) of drugs in liver, kidney, small bowel, lung, heart and stem cell transplant patients. Our current studies evaluate the effect of ischemia and reperfusion injury on the hepatic transport and metabolism; the effect of hepatic regeneration on the expression and activity of drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters and the clinical relevance of this in treating living donor liver transplant patients; the transport capacity of the transplanted kidney and its impact on drug therapy in kidney transplant patients; the regulation of gut metabolism and gut transporters in the small bowel transplant patients; the effect of acute and chronic rejection of the transplanted organs on the pharmacokinetics of drugs used in transplant patients; and the role prophylactic antifungal and antibacterial therapy in transplant patients. Local delivery of drugs at the site of infection thereby avoiding systemic side effects is a theme that is being pursued in lung transplant patients. In addition to the clinical studies, our group uses in vitro systems (human hepatocyte cultures, microsomes, isolated organ perfusion systems) and animal (non-clinical) models to mechanistically understand the regulation of the various above processes. In particular, human hepatocyte culture system is used to evaluate the mechanism(s) of hepatotoxicity, drug-drug interactions, drug-herb interactions, drug-cytokine interactions and hormones enzyme interactions. Our research incorporates mathematical modeling approaches to predict in vivo pharmacokinetics based on in vitro tests.