Current Research:

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 pharmacokientics of drugs used in transplant patients; and the role prohylactic 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.

Our group is also interested in studying the regulation of drug metabolism and transport during pregnancy and has initiated studies to evaluate developmental aspects of drug transporters such as P-glycoprotein
(PgP), BSEP, MRP2, BCRP and drug metabolism.

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, humanhepatocyte culture system is used to evaluate the mechanism(s) of hepatotoxicity, drug-drug interactions, drug-herb interactions, drug-cytokine interactions.

Bio:

Raman Venkataramanan is Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. He holds an
appointment as Professor of Pathology in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is a member of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, Center for Clinical Pharmacology, CTSI, UPCI and MIRM. He is the Director of the Clinical Pharmacokinetics Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his B.Pharm degree from University of Madras in Madras, India; M.Pharm degree from BITS, Pilani, India and Ph.D. from University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. After a postdoctoral fellowship in the University of Washington, he joined at the University of Pittsburgh in 1980. He has been appointed as a Food and Drug Administration Special Government Employee by the CDER. He has been reviewer for NCCAM, NIH, MRC and several journals. He has presented one hundred and twenty lectures at national and international meetings. He has published 230 research articles. Dr. Venkataramanan has been a visiting scientists for the Alberta Heritage Foundation, MRC Canada and KJ Hospital India. Dr. Venkataramanan is a Fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. He received the Orator award from the First Scientific session of the Sri Lanka Association of Nephrology and Transplantation (SLANT) in 1995. In 1998, he received the Ranbaxy Research Award in Pharmaceutical Sciences for excellence in research. He is the recipient of BMS Mentorship in Clinical Pharmacology offered by ACCP (2009); Provost’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Education offered by the University of Pittsburgh (2009); Innovations in Teaching award offered by Rho Chi Society at the University of Pittsburgh (2009) and Scholarly contributions award offered by Rho Chi Society at the University of Pittsburgh (2007). He has been an active member in IATDMCT, AAPS, ACCP, AACC and AACP.