A recent internship of PharmDr. Tomáš Smutný, Ph.D. at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm funded by the project Efficiency and safety improvement of current drugs and nutraceuticals: Advanced methods – new challenges (EFSA-CDN), a registration number CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000841, brought two important results.
First, in a collaboration with Professor Magnus Ingelman-Sundberg's group, Dr. Smutny (as a second shared co-author) published paper entitled Clinically relevant CYP3A4 induction mechanisms and drug screening in 3D spheroid cultures of primary human hepatocytes in the top journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (IF2018 = 6.336, 15th best journal out of 267 in a category Pharmacology and Pharmacy).
"CYP3A4 induction is the basis for a number of drug interactions. The results of our work underline the unique capability of 3D spheroids of human hepatocytes for testing the inducibility of CYP3A4 in the preclinical phase of drug development," says Dr. Smutny.
Second, the internship laid the path for dr. Smutny and prof. Pavek to apply for European EIT Health InnoStars RIS 2020 Innovation Call in a partnership with the biotechnology company Inocure. This application for funding of an international project has been accepted.
"In the project, we plan to generate 3D aggregates of primary human hepatocytes for more efficient testing of potential drugs based on the innovative HepaMATRIX system. This system can mimic both the structure of the natural cellular environment as well as the gradient of signaling molecules by their controlled release," says Dr. Smutny.
Given that the aims of the EFSA-CDN project are, among other things, research publications with foreign co-authorship, as well as 3 participations in international cooperation programs, we can say that these partial individual successes of Pavek´s group and Faculty of Pharmacy give a promise for other excellent results and international cooperation in the future.
Photo: Archive of PharmDr. Tomáš Smutný, Ph.D.
This project is supported by the European Structural and Investment Funds.
