Florin Musteata
Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, NY·Pharmacology
To measure how much of a drug has reached its target, doctors and researchers usually have to remove a piece of the patient: a blood sample or a tissue biopsy. This carries health risks and is inconvenient.
- Fields
Pharmacology
Chemistry
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
solid phase microextraction
in vivo sampling
microsampling
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Build biocompatible microextraction probes from flexible medical-grade metal wires coated with polymers and high-affinity extraction phases, to draw antibody drugs directly from tumors.
- Quantify immune checkpoint inhibitors extracted from breast tumors using chromatography and mass spectrometry, comparing external standard, diffusion-based and kinetic calibration methods.
- Validate in vivo solid phase microextraction against large-pore microdialysis, comparing sensitivity, accuracy, tissue damage and convenience.
- Build a pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic model, linking drug levels over time to drug effect, for a therapeutic antibody such as pembrolizumab, using tumor concentration data.
More about the research
It is also hard to measure drug levels inside tissues such as tumors, even though tissue levels predict treatment outcomes better than blood levels do. Bedside devices already exist for electrolytes and heart markers, but there are none for quickly tracking drug levels. This project develops tiny sampling probes that can measure antibody drugs directly inside tumors, without taking a sample from the body.
Why it matters
Minimally invasive probes that measure drug levels at the site of action could reduce the need for blood draws and biopsies. They could help clinicians choose correct doses of antibody drugs, such as checkpoint inhibitors given to patients with breast cancer. In the long run, this approach could make medication safer for all age groups. It could also support drug-level monitoring at the point of care, where no such clinical devices currently exist.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jost Klawitter
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Pharmacology
Measure cannabinoids such as THC and cannabis terpenes in samples from users at different life stages to assess exposure and drug-drug interactions, and build a biobank of these samples for future research.
Akihiko Urayama
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX·Neuroscience
Determine how chimeric versions of aducanumab and lecanemab are cleared from the brain in Alzheimer's model mice, and why clearance slows with age.
Elizabeth Thompson
Duke University, NC·Pharmacology·Early-career
Identify the best-performing population pharmacokinetic model of milrinone, a drug that helps the heart pump, by externally validating existing models against prospectively collected real-world data from an independent group of critically ill infants.
The school
Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences: 1 labs on PI Pages, $1M a year on research.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.