Impact of lipids and food on oral compound absorption: mechanistic studies and modeling

Lipids in drug delivery systems and food can have a tremendous impact on the systemic absorption of orally delivered compounds, including drugs, nutrients, and toxins. However, this impact cannot be quantitatively predicted a priori, and underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. The ability to quantitatively predict the

impact of lipids in drug delivery systems and food on oral compound absorption could revolutionize the oral formulation development process, significantly streamlining resource intensive drug development, enabling design of effective nutritive supplements, and increasing our understanding of how food composition and

structure impact health in an era of rapidly evolving food availability. The Carrier lab is focused on applying engineering analysis to intestinal systems for enabling effective oral delivery, as well as understanding the impact of ingested materials on human health. To date, the lab has developed a mechanism-based modeling

framework to predict the impact of lipids on oral compound absorption. Major goals of this project include: 1. Determining whether systems-based modeling approaches, capturing kinetics of key processes occurring in the gastrointestinal tract, can be used to describe and predict the impact of lipids in actual oral delivery

systems and food with complex composition and structure on absorption of orally delivered compounds. 2. Revealing mechanisms by which lipids impact co-transport of orally delivered compounds across the intestinal mucosa into lymph or portal circulation, together with appropriate mathematical expressions to describe these

processes. In addition to the laboratory`s track record of developing and translating mechanistic, predictive models of oral delivery and existing preliminary modeling framework, the lab is extremely well-positioned to markedly advance our understanding of oral absorption processes, given its expertise and experience in

design of advanced engineered experimental intestinal models and mechanisms for exploring the impact of the mucosal barrier on oral drug delivery, both of which will be leveraged in this project period. In addition, the PI has an extensive track record of multidisciplinary collaboration, including working with multiple industrial

partners, to best ensure that research outcomes translate to practice and are impactful to broad patient populations.