Medications are an integral part of
space flight, used to treat space motion sickness, headache,
sleeplessness, backache,
and nasal congestion among many other acute and chronic
ailments in space. With extended-duration space habitation,
and expedition
to Moon and Mars, pharmaceuticals will be used for the
treatment of illness and infections in addition to their
use in tandem
with other countermeasures to augment cardiovascular conditioning,
musculoskeletal integrity, and immune response. The goal
of
the Pharmacotherapeutics Laboratory is to mitigate pharmacotherapeutic
risk by identifying and providing safe and effective diagnostics
tools, pharmaceutical preparations, therapeutic procedures
and intervention strategies to enable successful space medical operations.
The
Pharmacology Laboratory, in close collaboration with the
Space Medicine and Health Care Systems Office, supports
medical requirements for the Shuttle, International Space
Station, and space exploration programs. Activities include
clinical pharmacy services, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics
research, therapeutic drug monitoring, specialized therapeutic
monitoring for spaceflight-related pathophysiology, novel
dosage form development, and pharmaceutical stability assessment. The Laboratory capabilities include but not limited to the
following activities:
- FDA sponsored Phase I - III Clinical trials implementation
- Clinical pharmacotherapeutics research
- International drug equivalency database construction
and maintenance for space program.
- Medications database maintenance for Shuttle, International
Space Station and future expeditions to Moon and Mars
- Novel drug delivery and monitoring methods and technologies
- Drug stability and shelf-life assessment and reference
database installation for space medicine.
- Development and validation of diagnostic and intervention
strategies and products
Current research projects in progress include:
- Bioavailability and performance effects
of scopolamine dosage forms in human subjects
- Pharmacodynamics of intranasal
scopolamine
- Development of microencapsulated
promethazine dosage forms
- Evaluation of gastrointestinal
function monitoring and enhancement strategies
- Bioavailability and pharmacodynamics
of promethazine dosage forms
- Stability of pharmaceuticals
in space and in simulated space flight environment
- Evaluation of radiation protectants
for pharmaceutical preparations
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