Vadim J. Gurvich, PhD, MBA

In 2022, the Gurvich Group, as part of the ITDD, continued working on a variety of drug discovery and development projects. Our team continued working with the National Institute of Aging and European colleagues on the development of a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease. We continued our collaborative project focused on developing first-in-class medication to promote mucosal healing in patients taking aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Our outgoing collaboration with the University of Illinois Chicago made significant progress in developing novel pharmacological interventions for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in Covid-19 patients. The project, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, requires developing a cyclic peptide-based drug candidate that is going to clinical trials in a couple of years. We continued our collaborative efforts with the Mayo Clinic to repurpose an old drug for the treatment of melanoma. Another collaboration with Mayo Clinic is aimed at developing therapeutics against alcoholic hepatitis. The project is led by Professor William Pomerantz. Another notable collaboration, with Professors Carolyn Fairbanks and George Wilcox, is focused on developing novel bivalent, peripherally restricted agents for the treatment of chronic pain.

PubMed

• Wang, Q., Gallardo-Macias, R., Vomhof-DeKrey, E. E., Gupta, R., Golovko, S. A., Golovko, M. Y., Oncel, S., Gurvich, V. J., & Basson, M. D. (2023). A novel drug-like water-soluble small molecule Focal Adhesion Kinase (FAK) activator promotes intestinal mucosal healing. Current Research in Pharmacology and Drug Discovery, 4, 100147. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crphar.2022.100147
• Salem, S., Byrn, S. R., Smith, D. T., Gurvich, V. J., Hoag, S., Zhang, F., Williams, R. O., & Clase, K. L. (2022). Impact assessment of the variables affecting the drug release and extraction of polyethylene oxide based tablets. Journal of Drug Delivery Science and Technology, 71, 103337. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jddst.2022.103337
• Wang, Q., Gallardo-Macias, R., Rashmi, R., Golovko, M. Y., Gurvich, V. J., & Basson, M. D. (2022). A Novel  Water-Soluble Small Molecule Fak Activator Promotes Intestinal Mucosal Healing (7th Ed., Vol. 162, Pp. S1053-S1053). Gastroenterology.