Drug Discovery Developments

A new book edited by Drs. Kishor M. Wasan (PhD) and Ildiko Badea (PhD) highlights a series of drug delivery discoveries by USask researchers.

A number of these new developments have advanced to the patent phase, including: 

  • Ellen Wasan and colleagues (Pharmacy and Medicine) have developed a new topical formulation of Nifedipine to treat Raynaud's Phenomenon (provisional patents have been filed). 
  • Ildiko Badea and colleagues have (Pharmacy and Medicine) developed a new formulation using Gemini Lipids to treat cancer (Canadian patents filed). 
  • Anas El-Aneed and Ildiko Badea (Pharmacy) have developed new liposome formulations, which are vesicles made out of the same material as cell membranes, to inhibit cholesterol absorption. 
  • Kishor and Ellen Wasan (Pharmacy) have developed a novel oral amphotericin B formulation to treat systemic fungal infections and parasitic infections which is currently in human clinical trials. (US Patents in 2013 and 2014). 
  • Petros Papagerakis and Silvana Papagerakis (Dentistry) have developed novel controlled drug delivery systems to treat oral cancer. 
  • Kate Dadachova (Pharmacy) has developed a new method to screen how antibodies with radioactive tags move through the human body. 

This book resulted from a recent issue of the journal Pharmaceutics, which received a high number of views in its online form. While the book was available on Amazon, it has already sold out of the first print and a second print will soon be available.