Department of Pharmacy School of Applied Sciences The Research Institute in Healthcare Science (RIHS)

PPPPPPPPRRRRRRRReeeeeeeeNNNNNNNN PHARMACY RESEARCH e-NEWSLETTER

January 2011 Volume 3 Issue 1

EEddiittoorriiaall

Happy New Year! Research activities within the Pharmacy Research Group have certainly got momentum, especially with the fees-only RIHS PhD studentships for Pharmacy Practice research. Potential high quality PhD students from overseas, either self-funded or government-funded, have shown interest to carry out PhD research broadly in Pharmaceutical Sciences area. They are ready to pay for the overseas fees, but they do not bring any separate consumable money. Unless UoW can ensure that a certain portion of their admission fees, e.g. £1500.00 per annum, comes back to Pharmacy/SAS/RIHS to contribute towards the cost of consumables, it is difficult to accept those PhD applicants. It can be noted that attracting such PhD students from overseas is one of the most cost-effective ways of increasing the high quality PhD student population within Pharmacy/SAS/RIHS. With Prof Morgan’s recent visit to a few Indian universities, it is expected that we may receive more and more of such applications in the near future. Consumable money is not that much of a problem for non-lab-based research, e.g. Pharmacy Practice, but most of the overseas applicants are interested in lab-based PhD research opportunities. Therefore, it is extremely important, at least for the sake of increasing the PhD student population and promoting active research within SAS, to find out a solution for the ‘consumable money’ issue. It is of course expected that any additional cost of consumables (above £1500.00) will have to be met from other funding sources, preferably by the supervisor (s). Prof Satyajit D Sarker & Prof Rae Morgan Editors

INSPIRE Success

The INSPIRE joint grant application (£45K) to the British Council to carry out collaborative research between Khulna University (KU) and University of Wolverhampton (UoW) over next three years has been successful. Prof S Sarker is leading the team at UoW with Dr L Nahar as the other member, and Dr Morsaline Billah is the main partner from KU with three other members, Dr Kazi Mohammed Didarul Islam, Dr Jamil Ahmed Shilpi and Mr Asif Ahmed in his team. The proposed project will explore the bioprospecting potentials of the plants from the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans.

Funding from Libyan Government Dr Hashmi Ali AGLEYO, Omar Al-Mukhtar University, Plant Protection Department, Al-Bida, LIBYA, has been awarded a fellowship form the Government of Libya to visit UoW for a period of six months in 2011 and to carry out a short research project under the supervision of Prof S Sarker and Dr L Nahar. His fellowship will cover all his expenses plus a bench fee of £3900. The proposed title of his project is ‘Chemical analysis of Shmari fruit honey (Arbutus pavarii) collected from Al-Jabal Al-Akhdar region, Libya’.

Omar Al-Mukhtar University

Editorial Advisory Board Dr Angel Armesilla Prof Ray Fitzpatrick Prof John Howl Dr Claire Martin Dr Lutfun Nahar Dr Paul Rutter

Exchange PhD Student Mr Qiang Peng, an exchange PhD student from College of Pharmacy, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China, has started a six month research training and exposure programme (Sept 2010-Feb 2011) at the Department of Pharmacy, UoW. Under the FP7-SP3-People grant agreement PIRSES-GA-2008-230791, he will be supervised by Dr James Tang in the area of controlled release of growth factors for tendon regeneration with the support from Research Institute in Healthcare Science (RIHS).

Editors: Professor Satya Sarker (s.sarker@wlv.ac.uk) and Professor Rae Morgan (rae.morgan@wlv.ac.uk)

2

January 2011 Volume 3 Issue 1

Dr Randolph Arroo Presents in the Pharmacy Journal Club

Dr Randolph Arroo

Dr Randolph Arroo, Reader in Phytochemistry, Leicester School of Pharmacy, De Montfort University, presented a wonderful talk in the Pharmacy Journal Club in October 2010. Here is the abstract of Dr Arroo’s presentation.

Self treatment of malaria with preparations of Artemisia annua L. Randolph Arroo, Corrinne Burns and Jack Woolley De Montfort University, Leicester School of Pharmacy - Natural Products Research World wide roughly a million people each year die of malaria. The disease is spread by mosquitoes that transfer the microscopic Plasmodium parasite. The occurrence of the disease is at the moment almost restricted to the tropical region of the world; malaria is almost absent in North America, Europe, and Australia. Thus, the disease has been dubbed ‘the poor people’s disease’. Traditionally, malaria was well treated with quinine or its synthetic analogue chloroquine. However, particularly in South America and in South East Asia, Plasmodium strains have developed that are resistant to quinine or quinine analogues. Novel anti-malarial drugs are derived from the plant Artemisia annua L. (Sweet wormwood). The drugs, all derivatives of the natural product artemisinin, have shown to be very effective. In an attempt to prevent the onset of resistance developing against these new drugs, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that artemisinin type drugs should only be given to malaria patients, and only in combination with other anti-malarial drugs. Recently, a parallel market has developed in complementary and alternative medicines based on extracts of Artemisia annua. Our research has found that most products that are available contain little or no active antimalarials; a small percentage contains some active ingredients, and may give malaria patients some temporary relief, but a high level of recrudescence occurs. More worrying is the wide spread of sub-optimal doses of artemisinin directly contradicts the WHO guidelines, and seriously increases the risk resistance developing.

Mini Article Deprofessionalisation of Pharmacy Dr Paul Rutter

Previous and current UK healthcare reforms have and continue to pose major challenges to how community pharmacy is practised. Over the last 60 years there has been an almost cyclical chain of events which has seen the pharmacists’ role change from diagnostician and provider of medicines to simply the supply of medicines with a deskilling of that role as extemporaneous dispensing all but disappearing, back toward, in 2010, the provider of information on medicines with a greater focus on disease prevention. Recent White Papers (in 2008 & 2010) have recognised pharmacy’s contribution but asks questions of the profession in terms of its ability to move further into clinical roles. This provides community pharmacy with opportunities to cement their place in primary healthcare provision as the medicines expert and to warrant the status of a true profession. This back drop is the framework to some of the work I have been conducting over the last 18-24 months. Research has focused on three separate streams, although all are inter-connected:

1. Healthy Living Pharmacies (HLP) 2. Engagement of ‘early adopters’ 3. Professionalism

The concept of a HLP was proposed in a 2008 pharmacy White Paper and with the award of a Department of Heath grant Wolverhampton and Portsmouth universities are evaluating the first large-scale trial of this new service based in Hampshire. Work to date has concentrated on providing an evidence base for pharmacy services to construct a HLP model and analyse both quantitative and qualitative data to test pre-determined outcome measures that constitute ‘success’. In tandem with this work is a project looking at how such innovative practice can be taken up by more mainstream community pharmacies (early adopters). Work is underway to establish what factors would allow early adopters to become more innovative (e.g. HLPs). Underpinning any changes in practice is the necessity for pharmacists to possess the right character traits and attributes that promote a fudicial relationship with patients so that the right environment exists in community pharmacy to deliver services that patients traditionally might see as the remit of the doctor. Work is currently on-going on aspects surrounding professional behaviour and the influence this has on activities. Particular attention is being paid to students, as they represent the future of the profession. So far work has looked at what defines professionalism, how it can be taught and measured, and student perception of this concept and how this is conceptualised. In addition to these three work streams further work is in planning; providing a sexual health service from pharmacy (PhD student Feb 2011); promoting clinical decision making (collaboration with Bradford university/PhD student March 2011) and exploring social capital through pharmacy (collaboration with De Montfort university)

Further Editorial Advisory Board Memberships for Prof Sarker Prof Satyajit D Sarker has been appointed to the editorial advisory boards of two new journals, Pharmaceutical Methods and Free Radicals and Antioxidants.

Editors: Professor Satya Sarker (s.sarker@wlv.ac.uk) and Professor Rae Morgan (rae.morgan@wlv.ac.uk)

3

January 2011 Volume 3 Issue 1

Pharmacy Research Group Journal Club in 2011

Date and Time Venue Speaker

Thursday 27 Jan 2011 1.00 – 2.00 p.m.

TBC Ms Ipek Suntar

Thursday 24 Feb 2011 1.00 – 2.00 p.m.

TBC Prof Maruf Ahmed

Thursday 24 Mar 2011 1.00 – 2.00 p.m.

TBC Dr James Tang

Thursday 22 Apr 2011 1.00 – 2.00 p.m.

TBC Dr Angel Armesila

Thursday19 May 2011 1.00 – 2.00 p.m.

TBC Prof R Fitzpatrick

Thursday 23 Jun 2011 1.00 – 2.00 p.m.

TBC Mr Alan Hindle

Thursday 29 Sep 2011 1.00 – 2.00 p.m.

TBC Dr Piali Palit (TBC)

Thursday 27 Oct 2011 1.00 – 2.00 p.m.

TBC TBC

Thursday 24 Nov 2011 1.00 – 2.00 p.m.

TBC TBC

Publications from the PRG in 2010 Asnaashari, S., Delazar, A., Alipour, S. S., Nahar, L., Williams, A. S.,

Pasdaran, A., Mojarab, M., Fatih-Azad, F. and Sarker, S. D. (2010)

Chemical composition, free-radical-scavenging and insecticidal activities of the aerial parts of Stachys byzantina, Archives of Biological Sciences 62, 653-662.

Asnaashari, S., Delazar, A., Habibi, B., Vasfi, R., Nahar, L., Hamedeyazdan, S. and Sarker, S. D. (2010) Essential oil from Citrus aurantifolia prevents ketotifen-induced weight-gain in mice, Phytotherapy Research 24, 1893-1897.

Chua, M., Baldwin, T. C., Hocking, T. J. and Chan, K. (2010) Traditional uses and potential health benefits of Amorphophallus konjac, Journal of Ethnopharmacology 128, 268-278.

Delazar, A., Khodaie, L., Afsar, J., Nahar, L. and Sarker S. D. (2010) Isolation and free-radical-scavenging properties of cyanidin 3-O-glycosides from the fruits of Ribes biebersteinii Berl., Acta Pharmaceutica 60, 1-11.

Delazar, A., Nazifi, E., Movafeghi, A., Nazemiyeh, H., Hemmati, S., Nahar, L. and Sarker, S. D.

(2010) Analyses of phytosterols and free

radical scavengers from the bulbs of Ornithogalum cuspidatum Bertol., BLACPMA 9, 87-92.

Delazar, A., Lasheni, S., Fathi-Azad, F., Nahar, L., Rahman, M. M., Asnaashari, S., Mojarab, M. and Sarker, S. D. (2010) Free radical scavenging flavonol 3-O-glycosides from the leaves of Ribes biebersteinii Berl., Records of Natural Products 4, 96-100.

Geroushi, A., Auzi, A. A., Elhwuegi, A. S., Elzawam, F., El Sherif, E., Nahar, L. and Sarker, S. D. (2010) Antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory activity of Ferula hermonis root oil in experimental animals, Latin American Journal of Pharmacy 29, 1436-1439.

Guo, X., Xu, B., Pandey, S., Goessl, E., Brown, J., Armesilla, A. L., Darling, J. L. and Wang, W. (2010) Disulfiram/copper complex inhibiting NFkappaB activity and potentiating cytotoxic effect of gemcitabine on colon and breast cancer cell lines, Cancer Letters 290,104 -113.

Harshaw, D., Nahar, L., Saif-E-Naser, G. M., Vadla, B. and Sarker, S. D. (2010) Bioactivity of Rumex obtusifolius (Polygonaceae), Archives of Biological Sciences 62, 387-392.

Holton, M., Mohamed, T. M., Oceandy, D., Wang, W., Lamas, S., Emerson, M., Nevses, L. and Armesilla, A. L. (2010) Endothelial nitric oxide synthase activity is inhibited by the plasma membrane calcium ATPase in human endothelial cells, Cardiovascular Research 87, 440-448.

__________________________________________________________

The next issue of PReN will be published in May 2011. Please send any news-worthy items directly to the editors by e-mail.

Mazid,

M. A., Datta,

B. K., Nahar,

L., Rashid,

M. A., Bachar, S. C.,

Bashar, S. A. M. and Sarker, S. D. (2010) Analgesic and diuretic

properties of α−santalone from Polygonum flaccidum, Phytotherapy Research 24, 1084-1087.

Mazid, M. A., Datta, B. K., Bachar, S. C., Bashar, S. M. A., Nahar, L. and Sarker, S. D. (2010) Analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities of Polygonum stagninum (Polygonaceae), Pharmaceutical Biology 48, 770-774.

Miah, M. N., Bachar, S. C., Nahar, L., Rahman, M. S., Rashid, M. A., Hadiuzzaman, S. and Sarker, S. D. (2010) Composition of the Volatiles of Citrus macroptera var. annamensis and Evaluation of Bioactivity, Journal of Essential Oil Bearing Plants 13, 211-218.

Nahar, L., Turner, A. B. and Sarker, S. D. (2010) Flash vacuum pyrolysis of some steroidal oxalate dimers, Turkish Journal of Chemistry 34, 359-366.

Nahar, L., Sarker, S. D. and Delazar, A. (2010) In “Phyllanthus: The Genus Phyllanthus” (editors: K..B. Harikumar and Ramadasan Kuttan), Phytochemistry of the genus Phyllanthus, CRC Press, USA.

Nazemiyeh, H., Kazemi, E. M., Zare, K., Jodari, M., Nahar, L. and Sarker, S. D. (2010) Free radical scavengers from Euphorbia petiolata, Journal of Natural Medicines 64, 187-190.

Sarker, S. D., Nahar, L. and Delazar, A. (2010) In “Phyllanthus: The Genus Phyllanthus” (editors: K..B. Harikumar and Ramadasan Kuttan), Hyphenated techniques in the study of the genus Phyllanthus, CRC Press, USA.

Sarker, S. D. (2010) Two decades of Phytochemical Analysis: from new isolation and characterisation techniques for plant secondary metabolites to advanced metabolomics studies, Phytochemical Analysis 21, 1.

Sauvage, S., Granger, M., Samson, E., Majumdar, A., Nigam, P., Nahar, L., Celik, S. and Sarker, S. D. (2010) Assessment of free-radical-scavenging and antibacterial activities, and brine shrimp toxicity of Scutellaria pinnatifida (Lamiaceae), Oriental Pharmacy and Experimental Medicine 10, 304-309.

Winward, L., Whitfield, W.G.F., McLennan, A.G. and Safrany, S. T. (2010) Oxidation of the diphosphoinositol polyphosphate phosphohydrolase-like Nudix hydrolase Aps from Drosophila melanogaster induces thermolability - A possible regulatory switch? International Journal of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, 42, 1174- 1181.

Xu, X., Guo, X., Mathew, S., Armesilla, A. L., Cassidy, J., Darling, J. L., and Wang, W. (2010) Triptolide simultaneously induces reactive oxygen species, inhibits NF-κB activity and sensitises 5-fluorouracil in colorectal cancer cell lines, Cancer Letters 291, 200-208.

Xu, B., Song, X., Yip, N. C., Xiao, P., Wang, W. and Zhou, S. (2010) Multiplex fluorescence real-time quantitative PCR for detection MDR1 and WT1 gene expression in acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Hematology 15, 74-80.

The above list is based on information on publications provided by the authors or by the Research Division Co-ordinators.

Further KTP success for Dr John Mole Dr John Mole has been successful in securing the KTP funding (£86,500.00) for a two year programme between the University of Wolverhampton, School of Applied Sciences (Dr E J Mole and Dr Tara Bal), the company ROAR (Forensics Ltd, Malvern) and a KTP associate.

KTP programme title: Development and validation of new laboratory methods for drug analysis within an internationally recognised laboratory accreditation system (ISO 17025) to enable the company to provide enhanced services and acquire new clients.

Editors: Professor Satya Sarker (s.sarker@wlv.ac.uk) and Professor Rae Morgan (rae.morgan@wlv.ac.uk)

4

January 2011 Volume 3 Issue 1

Wolverhampton Pharmacy Professor addresses Swedish national Conference

Professor Ray Fitzpatrick was a gust speaker at a national conference of over 100 Swedish Hospital Pharmacists in Stockholm in November. The focus of the conference was changes in medicines use and hospital pharmacy services. Professor Fitzpatrick in his presentation titled ‘Hospital Pharmacy 2020’ described the journey hospital pharmacy in the U.K. had been on over the last three decades, and how the focus had changed from product to patient. He gave his analysis on the changes in healthcare and society and how this was affecting medicines use in the U.K. He presented the concept of the medicines management pyramid and how hospital pharmacy services had developed to deliver the new medicines management agenda, stating the four pillars of the service were;

• Provision of medicines

• Pharmaceutical care

• Information

• Education and research.

He then went on to give his vision of how hospital pharmacy in the UK will change in the future highlighting the greater us of IT and automation, increasing decentralisation of services, use of third party providers, more pharmacist prescribers and better joint working with primary care. Drawing on the Wolverhampton experience he predicted there would be more integration between universities and practice in the training of pharmacists in the future. Feedback from the audience was very positive, since Sweden had similar issues in the changing patient demographics. The audience was particularly interested in the clinical pharmacy and pharmacist prescribing since Swedish hospital pharmacy services are not as clinically focused as those in the UK.

Dr Claire Martin and Dr James Tang in APSGB Dr Claire Martin and Dr James Tang are members of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Science of Great Britain (APSGB) Board of Directors. The APS is responsible for organising the UKPharmSci conference.

Report on Visit to India – 24th November – 2nd December 2010 Prof Rae Morgan

During the period 24

th Nov–2

nd Dec 2010, I visited a number of

colleges in India, with a view to fostering collaboration at faculty, research and teaching levels. The colleges visited were:

Doaba Group - Mohali Chandigarh Group - Landran Punjabi University - Patiala Lovely Professional University - Phagwara Vignan College - Hyderabad Netaji Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences - Hyderabad CMS College - Coimbatore

In all cases there was considerable interest in forming collaborative links at faculty and research level. Colleagues at these colleges in India are keen to establish working links with colleagues at UoW, with a view to establishing research collaborations and developments. The possibility of staff exchanges was also explored and there is considerable interest. Areas of interest were (but not exclusively) chemistry, pharmaceutical science, biotechnology and biomedical science. There was some interest in clinical pharmacy, but on a longer timescale than the areas. Considerable interest was also shown in the concept of an MSc by research, and the possible extension of this pathway into a taught PhD programme. This could be a school-wide development as the possibility of study areas in biotechnology, biomedical sciences and pharmaceutical sciences were all highlighted as being of potential interest. At the Masters level there was interest in some aspects of the new pharmaceutical sciences suite of programmes, especially in the non-university colleges (Doaba, Chandigarh, Vignan, Netaji and CMS). Meetings with agents also showed that there was considerable interest in direct recruitment to our MSc programmes and, in one case, a possible link with a large pharmaceutical company with a view to delivering short courses based on the MSc modules. In summary, all colleges visited expressed interest in collaborative links with UoW, but we will have to be the driving force to get things going. ___________________________________________________ The next issue of PReN will be published in May 2011. Please send any news-worthy items directly to the editors by e-mail.

Editors: Professor Satya Sarker (s.sarker@wlv.ac.uk) and Professor Rae Morgan (rae.morgan@wlv.ac.uk)