School of Pharmacy opens new Center for Targeted Drug Delivery

Chapman University’s School of Pharmacy is demonstrating its commitment to research on drug therapy by opening its first center—the Center for Targeted Drug Delivery (CTDD).

“The CTDD will unite existing scientific and technical expertise in biomedical, pharmaceutical, and material science research,” said
Ronald P. Jordan, R.Ph. FAPhA, dean of Chapman’s School of Pharmacy. “Our plan is to create a globally renowned interdisciplinary targeted drug delivery research collaborative with our extensive internal resources and our growing list of external partners.”

The goal is to create drugs with targeted delivery of therapeutic agents to a site in the body that allows maximum clinical benefit while sparing healthy cells and tissues from toxic side effects.  The typical path for creating a drug available for consumers takes an average of 12 years and involves many stages – each being a potential dead end. Usually the process begins in academic research leading to further research in commercial laboratories. Next comes manuscript publications and patents. From this point, a fraction will continue on into clinical trials and an even smaller fraction of these end up as successful drug candidates with approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“The use of modern day technologies to improve targeted drug delivery combined with innovative research, trial and commercial partnering approaches will lead to breakthrough advances in healthcare,” said
Kamaljit Kaur, Ph.D, associate professor in the School of Pharmacy and also the director of the CTDD.

Chapman’s CTDD joins approximately 50 drug discovery centers across the United States. The CTDD will integrate established expertise in drug delivery, gene therapy, cancer biology, polymer science and nanotechnology at the School of Pharmacy, as well as from other colleges at Chapman University. The CTDD will also collaborate with nearby universities as well as the pharmaceutical industry.

The primary researchers of CTDD will focus on breast cancer, prostate cancer, anti-cancer and anti-viral drugs, human melanoma, advanced drug delivery using lipid and polymeric materials, and preclinical and clinical pharmacology of delivery systems. The CTDD is located at the Chapman University School of Pharmacy campus in Irvine, CA.