University of Washington

OUR IMPACT A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT TO IMPROVE DRUG SAFETY Jashvant Unadkat, left, and Bhagwat Prasad are currently in discussions with additional research companies interested in joining UWRAPT. M ore than a decade ago, Professor of Pharmaceutics Jashvant Unadkat began studying how drug transporters affect the disposition, efficacy and toxicity of drugs used to treat diseases such as hepatitis C and AIDS. Transporters are membrane proteins that help the body absorb, distribute, metabolize and excrete drugs. Given the complexity of transporters, the variability of human genetics, and the sheer volume of transporters in the human body, the collective scientific knowledge about transporters has long contained many gaps. Unadkat seeks to change that. In 2012, he launched the UW Research Affiliates Program on Transporters (UWRAPT), a partnership between the School of Pharmacy and AstraZeneca, Genentech and Merck. The UW Center for Commercialization and Office of Sponsored Programs helped make this undertaking possible. Through UWRAPT, researchers from the four institutions are collaborating on nonproprietary research to enhance knowledge about the types and amount of transporters expressed in human tissues. This kind of academic-industry collaboration on nonexclusive research is rare. And it has exciting implications for other potential future partnerships that our School could launch. Unadkat and UWRAPT lead scientist Bhagwat Prasad hope UWRAPT's research will advance the collective knowledge about how the body processes medicines. They want to help scientists better predict the fate of new drugs early in development. In turn, this will help health care providers prevent drug interactions and understand how genetics affect the way individuals process medications. "This kind of academic-industry collaboration on nonexclusive research is rare. And it has exciting implications for other potential future partnerships that our School could launch." [ 8 sop.washington.edu ]

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