Facilities and equipment

The Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacogenetics research groups have access to a clinical trial facility, where most of the clinical studies involving healthy subjects are carried out.
Laboratory

 

The activities of the Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacogenetics Laboratory include both analysis of drug concentrations, dna and rna analysis as well as in vitro experiments.

Drug analysis

The skilled staff of the Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacogenetics Laboratory develop custom drug analysis methods for samples from laboratory experiments as well as from clinical trials, such as drug interaction and pharmacogenomic studies. Very low concentration drug and drug metabolite monitoring from various biological matrices is performed on selective and sensitive assays with ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometers (UPLC-MS/MS). The automated liquid handler assisted sample preparation combined with short analysis times allows a high-throughput sample capacity. Main matrices of drug analysis are plasma and urine, but also other types of samples can be used, ranging from in vitro mixtures to tissue homogenates.

Dna and rna analysis

The reliable extraction of genomic dna and rna samples is automated by a Promega purification system, followed by quantitiative PCR (qPCR) using QuantStudio 12K Flex based on TaqMan technologies. By analysing genomic dna sequence variants, gene copy number variation and mrna expression levels of genes, the genetic variation can be associated with differences in drug response.

Key laboratory instrumentation

The key laboratory instrumentation of the Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacogenetics Laboratory include:

  • Automatic liquid handlers (Tecan Freedom EVO)
  • Real-time PCR System (QuantStudio 12K Flex)
  • Liquid chromatographs (Shimadzu Nexera, Shimadzu Nexera X2, Agilent 1100)
  • Mass spectrometers (Shimadzu 8050, Sciex Qtrap 6500, Sciex Qtrap 5500, Sciex Api3000)