Alex Sparreboom received his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. from Utrecht University, The Netherlands, in 1989, 1993, and 1996, respectively. He was a staff scientist at the National Cancer Institute and then an Associate Member in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital before moving to The Ohio State University (OSU) in 2015. He is a Professor of Pharmaceutics and Pharmacology, the Lucius A. Wing Chair of Cancer Research and Therapy, and a member of the Translational Therapeutics Program at the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research studies the contribution of organic cation transporters to chemotherapy-induced toxicity profiles, identifies chemical inhibitors of critical transporters, translates the findings to clinical trials in collaboration with scientists and oncologists, and ultimately aims to improve the long-term outcome of patients with cancer by modulating the therapeutic window of widely-used chemotherapeutics. His research currently focuses on the development of transport modulators that could be used in conjunction with platinum-based drugs and anthracyclines, with emphasis on the development of innovative preclinical model systems.
Shuiying Hu holds a B.S. from Shanxi University, an M.S. from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from West Virginia University in 1995, 1999, and 2004, respectively. She is now an Associate Professor at the Division of Pharmaceutics and Pharmacology, College of Pharmacy, The Ohio State University. Before joining OSU, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins University (2004–2006) and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (2006–2011). Her research is to evaluate the contribution of uptake transporters, in particular the OATP1B-type transporters, in the disposition and toxicity of anticancer drugs, with particular emphasis on peripheral neurotoxicity. Her laboratory utilizes multi-level approaches including in vitro, and in vivo models, and aims to understand the underlying mechanisms that drive the extensive inter-individual pharmacokinetic variability, drug transporter regulation, antitumor efficacy, and drug-drug interaction in response to drug therapy in cancer patients. Another area of research interest is the design of preclinical and clinical studies to evaluate pharmaceutical agents as modulators of side effects associated with tubulin poisons, such as paclitaxel and vincristine.
