University Daily Kansan
Friday, May 5. 1978
3
KU drug development center to be dedicated today
By GENE LINN Staff Writer
A new drug development center at the University of Kansas could help to alleviate suffering caused by a wide range of diseases from epilepsy to the common cold.
A tour of the $850,000 Smissman Research Laboratories on Campus West will begin at 2:30 p.m. The building will be dedicated at 3:15 p.m.
The building is named for the late Edward Smismer, who was named. University
Distinguished Professor at KU in medicinal chemistry in 1964.
The laboratories will be involved primarily with four research projects that have been in progress for about two years at the university, director of drug design, said recently.
Staff Photo by TIM ASHNEF
Lab Lettermen
Perry Hartman (left) and Dennis Teepe from the Art and Sign company in Lawrence, hammered in letters over their stencil at
the new Smissman Research Laboratory on West Campus
Dedication ceremonies for the building will be held this afternoon
Positions begin Aug.1 Job descriptions, salary information and applications now available in the Student Senate Office,105B Union Deadline for applications: 5 p.m., May 12
Paid for by Student Activity fees.
It is difficult for one scientist to get such an expensive machine when he has just one grant to work with, Michael said. He said that students should develop drag projects could share all new equipment.
He added, "The main thing is that the center isn't just open to people working on drug design. Other investigators at the University can also use it."
OF THE four projects, one deals with the treatment of epilepsy. The others may result in the improved treatment of many different diseases. Marter said.
The work KU has done on epilepsy under Michaela's direction has attracted national attention.
RESEARCHERS FROM six departments at KU are involved in the research.
Some of the equipment used on these projects will be moved to the laboratories, Elias Michaels, associate professor of human development, said. It will be easier for various KU scientists to share this information after it is moved to a central location.
Michaelis also said that some new equipment would be installed, including a $15,000 machine that allowed scientists to trace the path of medicines as they are distributed through the body to various organs.
He explained that the machine reacted to light amounts of radioactive materials that caused damage.
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"If we can block the compound that causes electrical activity and find and manipulate the enzymes that inhibit that process, we may have a good control of epilepsy," Michaelis said.
KU scientists have found that some seizures, for example, those caused by withdrawal from alcohol addiction, could be alleviated by blocking the compound that caused electrical action in the brain, Michaela said.
However, the work on treating epilepsy is still in the experimental stage, he said, and it will probably be several years before the research can the research can be put into general use.
WORK IN this area, he said, could be combined with attempts by other scientists at KU to isolate the enzymes in the brain that inhibit electrical activity.
In the meantime, tests on new methods of treating epilepsy will be run at the center. Michaela said the main problem researchers faced was developing a drug that
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HE SAID that drugs taken in capsule or tablet form were first dissolved in the stomach and absorbed into the bloodstream through the stomach wall. The drugs are then absorbed by the diseased organ, he said.
the three other projects at the laboratories probably will have more general applications than Michaelus' work on epilepsy. Mertes said those projects were to improve the transport of drugs to diseased organs and the metabolism of drugs in the body.
Research into the availability and transport of drugs, Mertes said, can make the drugs' absorption and dissolution more effective and much faster.
The remaining project is designed to try to inhibit the ability of some enzymes in the body to slow the metabolism of drugs, Mertes said.
Valentino Stella, associate professor of pharmaceutical chemistry, said he had presented KU's work on the metabolism of drug conferences in Europe twice in the twenties.
Research on the availability, transport and metabolism of drugs will go on for several more years at the laboratories, Mertes said.
the American Chemical Society's meeting in California about a month and a half ago. The society is composed of representatives of the American drug industry.
Michelais said his speech dealt with research to block the action of a chemical compound that acted on nerve cell membranes in the brain and caused electrical disruption.
would not cause the serious side effects associated with drugs in current use.
Preventing that activity could alleviate epileptic seizures, he said.
*Eventually this research should help improve any solid medicine, including antiviral drugs.*
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