Research

Individualizing immune modulation & chemotherapy – i2mc

The i2mc research group is located at the Department of Pharmacology and the Dept of Medical Biochemistry, Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet. In focus of the research of this group is the individualization of immunosuppressive treatment and chemotherapy. By the combination of pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and pharmacogenomics, sources for individual variability in the response of specific drugs are investigated.

The overall aim for this research is to establish and document principles for individualized dosing. This may be achieved by regular measurements of drugs in plasma or blood, intracellular drug concentrations or surrogate markers of drug effects, the identification of variant genotypes or altered gene expression affecting drug response, etc. Among the drugs and targets being explored in current projects are mycophenolate and its target inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH), glucocorticoids, tacrolimus, thiopurines and busulfan. These investigations span from clinical studies in organ and stem cell transplant recipients to assay development and experiments in subpopulations of cells isolated from patients during drug therapy as well as in cultured cells. As described elsewhere on this IMUP web site, this research is performed in collaboration with the clinical transplant units at Rikshospitalet University Hospital plus colleagues at the School of Pharmacy, University of Oslo.