Dr. Joseph Rower is a Research Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Pharmacology and Toxicology, and Associate Director of the Center for Human Toxicology. Dr. Rower completed his graduate work at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus where his research focused on the unique pharmacology of nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors used to treat HIV. Some of this work supported the use of the drug combination tenofovir-emtricitabine for prevention of HIV transmission. His current work focuses on generating evidence based dose guidance within children. He has a particular interest in using dried blood spots (DBS) as an approach for generating pediatric pharmacokinetic data. Ongoing projects in the lab include:
1) Building a decision support tool (DST) guiding tacrolimus dosing in pediatric heart transplant. The immunosuppressant tacrolimus is a drug with a narrow therapeutic index which exhibits substantial inter-individual variability, complicating its clinical use. We previously constructed a population PK model of tacrolimus that provides the underlying mathematics of a DST that is currently being prospectively tested in children following heart transplant. We anticipate that the DST will help clinicians efficiently determine a therapeutic dose of tacrolimus in this population, and in doing so, improve clinical outcomes.
2) Determining the safety/efficacy of valganciclovir in asymptomatic congenital CMV infection. The laboratory is providing pharmacology support for a multi-center study of valganciclovir to prevent hearing loss in newborns congenitally infected with CMV, using samples collected via DBS.
3) Determining the safety/efficacy of oxandrolone to promote weight gain following congenital heart defect repair in newborns.
Dr. Rower’s current research focuses on improving the clinical care of children. Specifically, his research focuses on validating bioanalytical methods for determining drug concentrations from small blood volumes. This research has the potential to revolutionize pediatric clinical pharmacology studies, especially in neonates and other populations where blood volume is limited. These advances will enable future studies which can better define the impact of age on the pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic relationships. Dr. Rower is especially interested in defining these relationships for drugs used to treat infectious diseases and in transplantation.
