Stellar Addition

Pharmaceutics Alumna, PK/PD Specialist Lei Wu Joins Department as Research Assistant Professor

June 19 — UH College of Pharmacy alumna Lei Wu, Ph.D., recently was appointed as a research assistant professor in the college's Department of Pharmacological & Pharmaceutical Sciences. 

Wu had been working as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of her graduate advisor, UHCOP Pharmaceutics Professor Diana S-L. Chow, Ph.D., FNAI, since her graduation from the Pharmaceutics doctoral program in 2014.

Her graduate student work and dissertation involved in a NASA project on clinical pharmacokinetics (PK) of intranasal scopolamine under microgravity condition (in collaboration with Chow and their late colleague and UHCOP alumna Lakshmi Putcha, Ph.D.). Wu successfully developed a PK co-modeling for describing and predicting the multiple compartments of intranasal scopolamine in plasma, saliva and urine, with the goal of developing a more effective delivery mode with reduced side effects for personnel in space suffering from motion sickness. 

During her doctoral studies, Wu received a Student/Trainee Award over three consecutive years from the American College of Clinical Pharmacology.

As a postdoctoral researcher, Wu received fellowship funding from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) for the development and validation of predictive degradation models for the pharmaceutical preparations contained in the International Space Station medical kits, and performed bioequivalence studies in a small animal model. 

Wu has presented nearly 20 podium or poster presentations at national meetings; authored or coauthored nearly a dozen publications in such journals as PLOS One, the British Journal of Pharmacology; and the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology; and is co-inventor of a pending patent for novel clinically applicable intravenous dosage formulations of the antifungal agent itraconazole.

Wu is currently serving as co-investigator under Chow on a five-year, $541,623 subaward from Texas Southern University for development of its Gulf Coast Consortia Center for Comprehensive PK/PD and Formulation awarded in 2018.