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Full-Text Articles in Chemicals and Drugs
Identifying A Glucocorticoid-Activated Gpcr That Rapidly And Non-Genomically Increases Camp Levels In Mammalian Cells, Francisco Nunez
Identifying A Glucocorticoid-Activated Gpcr That Rapidly And Non-Genomically Increases Camp Levels In Mammalian Cells, Francisco Nunez
Pharmaceutical Sciences (PhD) Dissertations
Glucocorticoids (GCs) are steroid hormones that regulate diverse physiological processes. Synthetic versions of GCs are commonly used to treat inflammatory diseases such as asthma by modulating gene expression to suppressing several inflammatory activities. However, it is estimated that 5-10% of asthmatics are unresponsive to GCs, which may be explained by receptor desensitization and/or the presence of a neutrophilic endotype. One understudied phenomenon of GCs is their ability to induce rapid, non-genomic actions. For example, GCs can acutely modulate calcium concentrations levels, induce smooth muscle relaxation and modulate nitric oxide synthase activity, within minutes and sometimes seconds, which is too rapid …
Exogenous Surfactant As A Delivery Vehicle For Intrapulmonary Therapeutics, Brandon J. Baer
Exogenous Surfactant As A Delivery Vehicle For Intrapulmonary Therapeutics, Brandon J. Baer
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
As an organ system, the lung has unique advantages and disadvantages for direct drug delivery. Its contact with the external environment allows for the airways to be easily accessible to intrapulmonary delivery. However, its complex structure, which divides into more narrow airways with each branch, can make direct delivery to the remote alveoli challenging. The objective of this thesis was to overcome this issue by using exogenous surfactant, a lipoprotein complex used to treat neonatal respiratory distress syndrome, as a carrier for pulmonary therapeutics. It was hypothesized that therapeutics administered with a surfactant vehicle would display enhanced delivery to the …