Award Details:
Award Type: Catalyst
Award #: C-066
Proposal Title: Role of Gut Microbiota in Determining Drug Efficacy and Toxicity
PI(s): Hyunyoung Jeong (UIC) and Eugene Chang (UChicago)
Award Amount: $199,998.00
Application Cycle: Round 20 (Fall 2015)
Award Start Date: February 1, 2016
Award End Date: January 31, 2018
Abstract:
Unintentional drug over- or under-dosing is an enormous clinical problem. For example, In 2007, approximately 27,000 unintentional drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States (one death every 19 minutes). Inter-individual variability in the rate of drug elimination is a key contributor to this. Yet, what causes the variability remains uncertain. Potential roles of human genetic differences (among individuals) in the inter-individual variability have been extensively studied over the last 30 years, but we are still unable to predict the rate of drug elimination based on the genetic information alone. Identification of novel factors that cause the variability in drug elimination will lay a foundation for the design of optimal drug therapy and thus enable us to accomplish precision medicine. We propose herein to explore gut microbiota (the aggregate of microorganisms residing in the gut) as a potential contributor to inter- individual variability in drug elimination.