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Clinical Pharmacology

PHARMACOKINETICS

Pharmacokinetics is the study of the time-course of a drug in the body. It deals with both the rates and extent of drug absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination, and the mechanisms of these processes.

The discipline uses a variety of state of the art analytical techniques to quantitate drug concentrations in bio-fluids (blood, plasma, urine), such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ultra-violet, fluorescence, electrochemical and mass-spectrometry detectors.

By applying mathematical modelling techniques, pharmacokinetic analysis enables the prediction of a drug’s concentration in the body at a given time after exposure.  The use of a population pharmacokinetic approach can allow for the identification of factors that different people have that may influence their exposure to a drug, such as body weight, age, or genetics.
 
By understanding the mechanisms of drug disposition one can make predictions about what circumstances may put certain people at risk of side effects, or of not getting enough medicine resulting in a lack of efficacy.
The Discipline of Pharmacology has particular analytical strengths in:

1. Drug assays, especially of opioids
2. Population pharmacokinetic modelling
3. Drug metabolism, especially identification of CYP isoforms
4. Physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modelling using a sheep model

1. Pain control
2. Drug dependence
3. Drug development
4. Angina

Professor Andrew Somogyi
Dr Janet Coller
Dr Benedetta Sallustio

1. Development of a population pharmacokinetic model for methadone enantiomers and other opioids (funded by NHMRC)
• People: Andrew Somogyi
  
2. Physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modelling of opioids such as methadone and LAAM (funded by NHMRC)
• Effect of alteration in cerebral blood flow
• Effect of anaesthesia
• Effect of altered lung tissue binding
  
• People: Andrew Somogyi, Dr Richard Upton (Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, Royal Adelaide Hospital and The University of Adelaide – http://www.anaesthesia.adelaide.edu.au/research/index.html, Lona Christrup (Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Copenhagen).
  
3. Effect of methadone maintenance therapy on morphine pharmacokinetics in methadone maintenance subjects (funded by NIH (NIDA))
• People: Andrew Somogyi
  
4. Comparison of methadone pharmacokinetics during induction and steady-state (funded by NHMRC)
• People: Andrew Somogyi, Jason White
  
5. Integration of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics
• People: Andrew Somogyi, Jason White
  
6. Pharmacokinetics of co-analgesics such as ketamine, ketorolac and tramadol in methadone maintenance subjects (funded by NIH (NIDA))
• People: Andrew Somogyi, Jason White
  
7. Pharmacokinetics of opioid agonists and antagonists used in opioid substitution programs
• Buprenorphine
• Morphine
• LAAM
• Naltrexone
• Tincture of opium
  
• People: Jason White, Andrew Somogyi, Felix Bochner
  
8. Enantioselective pharmacokinetics of perhexiline in angina patient’s
• People: Benedetta Sallustio, Andrew Somogyi, Janet Coller
  
9. Drug absorption 
   • (link is currently under development)
     
10. Role of transporters in opioid effects
• People: Janet Coller