Pitt Pharmacy Associate Professor Xiaochao Ma, PhD, was awarded an NIH R01 grant for his work titled, “The ABCG2 transporter in protoporphyrin IX (PPIX) disposition: From toxicity to therapy.”
Ma also has two other NIH grants, one funded by The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the other by The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
This grant focuses on protoporphyria and a pathway to treatment. People with the genetic diseases erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP) and X-linked protoporphyria (XLP) suffer from severe toxicity, including sensitivity to light and liver damage, and there is no cure. The project, led by Ma, will determine how suppressing a transporter called ABCG2 lessens these toxicities. The results from this project may lead to new treatments for EPP and XLP.
Xiaochao Ma is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and a member of the Center for Pharmacogenetics, University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy.
