1. History
The Department of Pharmacy in Central South University was established under Xiangya Hospital in early 1907. To develop its education, the original Hunan Medical University started a 5 years pharmacy undergraduate program in 1985, which was an innovated and unprecedented milestone for the education in pharmacy. The Department of Pharmacy was initiated to prepare students for the world of pharmaceutics work, professional study and graduate program. In 2002, the school of Pharmaceutical Sciences was established in Central South University, which covered 7 different disciplines, including a new Department of Pharmacy, which was a collaborative institute between the original foundation and three Xiangya affiliated Hospitals. In 2009, the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences reorganized its administrative structure to incorporate its clinical pharmacy, pharmaceutical analysis and pharmacy administration into the new Department of Pharmacy.
The Department of Pharmacy is one of the most outstanding curriculums in Hunan, which is eligible to award Master and Doctor's degree. On the front of education and academic research, the Department of Pharmacy with the enrollment of 14 faculties, including 3 professors and 4 associate professors aims to make breakthrough in new drug and new formulation design and biopharmaceutics.
2. Structure
Educational institute: The Department of Pharmacy has 6 educational offices including pharmacy, biopharmaceutics, pharmaceutical analysis, clinical pharmacy, pharmacy administration, and pharmacy evaluation.
Research institute: The Department of Pharmacy has 2 research groups: new drugs and biological effectiveness group, drug dynamics and analysis technology group.
3. Research Orientation
This professional curriculum in pharmacy emphasized on the development on new drugs and new formulations, and it is focused on the fundamental investigations on Drug delivery across membrane and the applied practices on new drug delivery system. Several sub-programs were shown as below:
1) New drug delivery system：this program includes molecular pharmaceutics basic research for the design and evaluation of targeting delivery system, new percutaneous delivery system, and applied practice on improved efficacy of insoluble drugs, sustained/ controlled release delivery system.
2) Pharmacokinetics and biopharmaceutics: this program includes the screen and evaluation of the biopharmaceutics characters of the chemicals and drug loaded particles, preliminary research on the pharmacokinetics of testing drugs in pre- and post- clinical practice.
4. Research Program
At present, the Department of Pharmacy has 16 key research projects: 11 National Natural Science Foundation programs, 3 National "1025" major science and technology projects, 1 National twelfth five year major special platform construction project, 1 Provincial key scientific and technological project and over 40 enterprise cooperation projects, which in total are over ￥17,000,000.
Currently, Pharmacy science has completed 17 new drug research projects with cooperative enterprise, among which 7 programs were put into operation.
5. Research Condition
The Department of Pharmacy has the advanced research platform in developing therapeutic drugs. The whole infrastructure occupies nearly 4000 square meters, and contains several laboratories with various functions. These labs equipped with the most up-to-date instruments (valued up to 30 million), which delicate to the fabrication of drugs, characterization of drugs, fundamental research in cellular and molecular levels, animal research and mid-industrial scale manufacture in solid and semi-solid drugs, respectively.
6. Research Team
Cheng Zeneng: male, born in September 1965, Professor, PhD student advisor. Research: biopharmaceutics and pharmacokinetics.
Ding Jinsong: male, born in February 1972, Professor, PhD student advisor, the director of the Department of the pharmacy. Research: new drugs and new formulations, biopharmaceutics.
Liu Juewen: male, born in September 1978, Professor, master advisor, Central South University "sublimation scholar" talent. Research: Nucleic acid adaptive ligand selection and drug targeting delivery.
Chen Chuanpin: male, born in June 1978, associate professor, PhD student advisor. Research: application of micro control chip in pharmaceutical analysis.
Yao Yao: female, born in 1962, associate professor, master advisor. Research: new drugs and new formulations.
Yu Peng: male, born in November 1978, associate professor, master advisor. Research: new technology of drug analysis.
Zhu Qubo: male, born in January 1981, associate professor, master advisor. Research: Molecular biology study on the effect of drug formulation.
Liu Wenjie: female, born in April 1986, lecturer, master’s advisor. Research: biological pharmacy study based drug formulation.
Liu Zhenbao: male, born in June 1983, lecturer, master advisor. Research: new drugs and new formulations.
7. Introduction to Pharmacology Discipline
The Pharmacology discipline of Central South University, established in 1945, was authorized to confer Master and Doctoral degree in 1981 and became a post-doctoral research station in 1991. It was rated as the national key discipline in 2001 and the first domestic top-quality courses in 2004. Under the strong leadership of the older famous generation of pharmacologists such as professors Yu-Wen Ye, Xiu Chen, Zhao-Gui Guo, the subject was divided into four branches, including pharmacogenetics, cardiovascular pharmacology, clinical pharmacology, and molecular pharmacology. Especially, for example, pharmacogenetics, based on the forefront of the world, systematically investigated molecular genetic mechanisms responsible for drug interactions and interindividual and racial variations in drug response, and firstly internationally confirmed the hypothesis that drug-metabolizing enzymes activities were determined by the dose of mutation genes. The overall level of our discipline ranks among the leading national medical colleges. With key discipline construction, the subject has achieved leapfrogging development in the matter of discipline direction, team construction, talents cultivation, scientific innovation, platform construction, and have already become important training base for pharmacological scientific researchers and academic staffs.
During the construction period, there are always new forward leaps in the development of our discipline team, which is composed of Professor Hong-Hao Zhou, a chief scientist and famous academician, Yangtze River scholar Professors, NSFC Distinguished Young Scholars, the first national Millions of Talents and New Century Excellent Talents, forming a highly educated, younger, stable discipline team with obvious advantages and unique academic characteristics. Meanwhile, with the efforts of cultivating talents, the thesis of each graduate has been published in high-quality SCI journals. To date, two papers have been defined as the national excellent doctoral dissertation, and six have been nominated as the national outstanding doctoral dissertation.
During the Twelfth Five-year Plan period, we have made great progress in understanding the molecular genetics mechanisms of individual and ethnic differences in drug responses, pharmacogenomics of major diseases, and cardiovascular protective effects of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP). Besides, we pioneered the field of pharmacogenetics in China, formed the first domestic team in pharmacogenetics and applied the theory of pharmacogenetics to clinical practice. On the basis of more than 20 years’ study, we developed the first gene chip technology for individualized drug therapy in China with independent intellectual property rights, and established platform of individualized treatment of hypertension using the related gene diagnosis technology. We first proposed and demonstrated that CGRP is an endogenous cardioprotective substance, exhibiting protective effects in the context of cardiac ischemia, heat stress and pharmacological preconditioning. On the basis of our results, we are developing a class I novel antihypertensive, rutaecarpine, whose blood pressure-lowering effects were demonstrated to be mediated by CGRP.
Discipline Direction
Under the leadership of the chief pharmacologist Hong-Hao Zhou and professor Yuan-Jian Li, the discipline is ranking ahead in national medical colleges by years of efforts and construction of the Twelfth Five-year national key discipline. Especially in some research fields including pharmacogenetics, pharmacogenomics and cardiovascular pharmacology, the discipline ranks among the leading academic institutions in the world. Our pioneering work includes: 1) the ethnic and individual difference in drug metabolism and the underlying genetic mechanisms; 2) the correlation between drug-metabolizing enzyme gene polymorphism and phenotype; 3) the roles of environmental and genetic factors in the regulation of drug-metabolizing enzymatic activity; 4) clinical research and application of gene-oriented individualized medicine and R&D of related diagnostic technology (gene chip); 5) the first demonstration that CGRP is an endogenous cardioprotective substance, which ameliorates cardiac ischemia, heat stress and pharmacological preconditioning and which mediates the cardiovascular effects of nitroglycerin, a classic antianginal drug used clinically for > 120 years; 6) identification of rutaecarpine as a new antihypertensive, whose effects are mediated by CGRP in a unique fashion; 8) the first report that ADMA promoted atherosclerosis, indicating ADMA as a therapeutic target for the treatment of arthrosclerosis. Owing to our scientific achievements, the pharmacology and toxicology discipline of Central South University went into the world top 1% in 2011 based on Essential Science Indicators.
Academic Team
During the past decade, there are always new forward leaps in the development of our discipline team. The chief scientist, Professor Hong-Hao Zhou was elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (2005), Professor Wen Xie was selected as The Yangtze River scholar Professor (2005). Numerous outstanding young teachers come to the fore: Professor Fengyuan Chen was selected as 1000Plan expert in 2012; two received the National Outstanding Youth Fund (B); one was elected to the first branch of the new century talents project; two were enrolled in the new century talents program of the Ministry of Education; one won the Hunan Provincial ‘Lotus scholar’ professor; four were elected to the Hunan Provincial Cross-century 121 talents project; six were elected as the trainees of Hunan Provincial college young teachers; ten young academic leaders with a doctoral degree are recruited. A highly educated, younger, stable academic team has been established, and the academic team structure is getting optimized.
Scientific Research
We have established molecular biology, cell biology and pharmacokinetic studies as a platform, and have been exploring the mechanisms underlying the racial and individual differences in drug responses. Our research is domestically leading and internationally advanced. During construction of the pharmacology discipline, we further elaborated the genetic mechanisms of drug interactions at molecular levels. Based on years of research, we carried out clinical research on gene-oriented individualized drug treatment of hypertension and related diagnostic techniques (gene chip). This represents the first step to guide the individualized patient medication - from the genetic pharmacological basic research to clinical application.
We made breakthroughs in illustrating the individual differences in drug responses in the context of diseases, such as hypertension, obesity and diabetes. We for the first time elucidated the mechanistic association between beta-adrenergic polymorphism and drug adverse effects or susceptibility of hypertension, obesity and type 2 diabetes. We also dissected the mechanisms by which beta-adrenergic polymorphism impacts TZDs application in diabetic patients. These studies have provided insights into the pathogenesis of hypertension and obesity and served as experimental and theoretical basis for optimized application of beta-adrenoceptor-targeting drugs. Our results have opened the door for future development of beta-adrenoceptor-acting drugs for hypertension and obesity.
In the fields of cardiovascular pharmacology and molecular pharmacology, we also have made significant strides. We for the first time proposed that CGRP is an endogenous cardioprotective substance, which preserves heart function under the conditions of ischemia, heat stress and pharmacological preconditioning. Our data for the first time suggest that CGRP mediates the cardiovascular effects of nitroglycerin, representing a big advancement in unveiling the mechanisms behind the antianginal effects of nitroglycerin. We for the first time showed that rutaecarpine, an active ingredient derived from herbal medicinal Evodia, lowers blood pressure via its effects on CGRP, representing a distinct blood pressure-lowering mechanisms from the currently available 5 categories of antihypertensives.
