Dr. Noreddin's Lab

Research Projects

• Bioscreening
  We are currently assessing instrumentation that will allow high throughput analysis of drug susceptibilities.  The instrumentation can assess many different strains of bacteria and many different compounds in one experiment, with as many as 200 tests performed at once.  This will allow us to perform several months’ worth of work in only a few weeks.

• In vitro modeling system
  We use a dynamic, in vitro bioreactor system to model patient drug levels achieved under various dosing regimens and renal clearance rates.  This system maintains a calculated flow rate into a central compartment that mimics drug levels over time in a patient after each dose.  The central compartment is inoculated with an amount of bacteria similar to what may be found in an initial infection. By using a flow system, the normal rise and fall of drug concentration in the blood can be mimicked and a constant supply of nutrients is made available to the microbes “infecting” the system.  This allows us to assess drug pharmacodynamics under a variety of different pharmacokinetics and bacterial resistance conditions.

• Hollow fiber bioreactor
  The hollow fiber bioreactor system is an extremely flexible system that allows us to combine culture of mammalian cells with microbial cultures.  It is a dynamic system that allows simulation of patient drug dosing and re-supply of nutrients to the infection similar to the in vitro modeling system described above but on a more specialized scale.

• Biofilm eradication
  A new avenue of research for our laboratory is investigation of antibiotic effects on established biofilm.  Clinically, biofilm present a challenge as these structures have a different sensitivity to antibiotic therapy than free bacteria, making biofilm more difficult to eradicate with antibiotics.  We are in the process of developing methods to assess biofilm growth that can mimic biofilm formation on medical devices. 

• LC/MS analysis of body fluids
  We have recently purchased a state-of-the-art LC/MS system.  Our primary focus for this project is method development for measurement of antibiotic levels actually achieved in various patient body fluids as a way to specifically assess the dose of drug reaching the infection. 

Members

Virginia Haynes, research fellow
Chris Wimberger, visiting researcher
Dan Lexcen, graduate student
Teresa Johnson, pharmacy student
Dan Tomaszewski, pharmacy student
Luke Bierl, pre-pharmacy student
Joanne Muriithi, pre-pharmacy student
Lucas Geder, biology student