University of Nottingham Veterinary School in association with Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Oxford) - Enhanced Stipend:

Background:
The School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at the University of Nottingham is the first brand new, purpose-built veterinary school in the UK for over 50 years and it is our intent to make significant leading contributions to both veterinary research and teaching within the context of valid relevance and application to the wider veterinary profession.
Research is central to the activities of the School, both in terms of maintaining ourselves at the forefront of national and international efforts in veterinary medicine but also as an integral part of the training and education for undergraduate and postgraduate students. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science joint submission with the School of Biosciences was ranked first in the country for the power of its research with 95% of its activities classified at an international standard.

Project Title - Integration of an in vitro renal cellular set of tools with systems biology modelling to predict the renal contribution to the pharmacokinetics of a drug.

Project description:
A suite of hepatic metabolic in vitro tools, such as recombinant enzymes and hepatocytes, have been integrated with systems biology modelling (SBM) to predict drug pharmacokinetics (PK) in humans. However, limited research has been carried out on in vitro renal cellular tools integrated with SBM to predict the renal contribution to the PK of a drug. The PhD studentship will include cell culturing and gene silencing techniques. Renal transporter expression will include immunofluorescence, dot blot and western blot. Drug permeability measurements will involve bidirectional trans epithelial flux measurements of substrates across monolayers of pure renal tubule cells and will be measured at steady state using HPLC coupled with mass spectrometry. A successful outcome for this project will improve the health and welfare of humans and animals by reducing the incidence of renal drug-drug interactions and the potential for adverse effects from combinations of administered drugs.

This project is based on collaboration between the University of Nottingham and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Ltd (http://www.vrtx.com/ ) based in Oxford. It is therefore expected that the student will spend 6 months at Vertex to acquire new skills in pharmaceutical research and development (R&D).