Faculty of Health Sciences
School of Medicine
Department of Pharmacology
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
The 2010 Annual Congress of the South African Society of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology was held as a joint meeting with the Toxicology Society of South Africa in Cape Town in early October. Six postgraduate students of the Department gave presentations and four received awards in either Pharmacology or Toxicology.
Numerous projects are currently taking place in the Department in either Basic or Clinical Pharmacology. One study which is aimed at improving in vitro hepatotoxicity detection by examining various endpoints simultaneously using a single 96-well microplate method has shown a prediction accuracy of 99.97%. Findings also indicated that cytochrome P4501A activity is a better predictor of toxicity than viability (cytotoxicity). The latter suggests that run-of-the-mill cytotoxicity testing may be ineffective at detecting the hepatotoxicity of some compounds in vitro and sheds some light on why the hepatotoxic potential of some marketed drugs are not detected. Furthermore, herbal remedy extracts are also being tested to determine whether they possess hepato-protective activity.
A study into the pre-clinical development of Riminophenazines as resistance circumventing anticancer agents has enabelled successful encapsulation of a synergistic fixed-ratio combination of Clofazimine and Paclitaxel with a novel, tumor-targeting, nanoparticulate drug delivery system called Riminocelles™. Riminocelles™ have been shown to be more efficacious in terms of tumor growth inhibition than Taxol® (at an equivalent Paclitaxel dose) against multidrug resistant (MDR) human xenograft tumors. Furthermore, Lipiodol (a radio opaque, oily contrast agent) was successfully entrapped within a novel nanoemulsion system called RiminoPLUS imaging. This system is thought to enable CT imaging of solid tumors as well as targeted drug delivery.
Contact person: Prof V Steenkamp.
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