18^th Annual Pharmaceutical And Chemical Analysis Congress November 05-06, 2018 Madrid, Spain

Ana Lucić Vrdoljak has completed her PhD at University of Zagreb, Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry. She is appointed as a Scientific Advisor at the Institute\r\nfor Medical Research and Occupational Health, Zagreb, Croatia, and as a Lecturer in the Department of Biotechnology, University of Rijeka. Her research interest\r\nare focused on experiments dealing biochemical markers of drug and chemical toxicity in vivo and in vitro. Her work has been presented through 60 scientific\r\npapers.

The use of cannabinoid-based preparations by cancer patients raises concern whether delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)\r\ncan modulate or even compromise the effectiveness of concurrently administered anticancer drugs. Irinotecan (IRI) is\r\na type of drug that causes various severe adverse effects such as diarrhoea, gastrointestinal toxicity and myelosuppression.\r\nNewer reports point to hepatotoxicity being an underestimated but important IRI side effect as well. This study focused on\r\nthe evaluation of potentially detrimental interactions of IRI and THC in the liver of Wistar rats. Male rats were concomitantly\r\nexposed to IRI (at 100 mg/kg b.w., administered once i.p.) and THC (administered repeatedly for 1, 3 and 7 days per os at 7 mg/\r\nkg b.w). Single IRI-treated rats, followed by those given combined treatment. In contrast to 3-day, 7-day treatment with single\r\nTHC slightly impaired hepatocyte DNA integrity. Rats given combined treatment demonstrated increased lipid peroxidation\r\nand higher CAT levels than those administered single IRI, at both time points, which may indicate that combined treatment\r\ninduced more intense oxidative stress. Our findings provide evidence regarding a significant synergic enhancement of IRI\r\ntoxicity caused by THC intake, which was confirmed using all of the applied biomarkers. Nevertheless, since we tested only one\r\nIRI and THC dose, further studies are required to further clarify their mutual interactions.

Tamara Perellón has successfully completed her Master Thesis on Applied Chromatography Techniques at Catalan Institute for Water Research. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedicine and in Biochemistry. Her strong knowledge of analytical chemistry and biology and expertise in quality assurance aspects lead her to collaborate in projects with an open-minded perspective both in academic field and pharmaceutical industry. Her methodical literature research on transformation products created a useful transformation products screening database for the project H2PHARMA. The results obtained on elucidation of removal processes taking place in vitro on the preliminary experiment of the project were helpful to the further development of the research line. Based on a quality insight, she analyzed weak points of the research project. This approach is responsive to the finding of apparently inappropriate containers used for sample collection during some points of the research.

Statement of the Problem: Researchers have reported that current wastewater treatments are not efficient in pharmaceuticals removal. Then they are released to environment through wastewater contaminated by the industry and consumer’s urine or faeces, both human and veterinary. Due to their biological activity, pharmaceuticals are potentially ecotoxic although their effects are not fully understood. Anyway, there is a growing concern on them and new wastewater treatments are studied to improve pharmaceuticals removal in highly contaminated water, as hospital and pharmaceutical industry wastewater effluents. The purpose of this study is to assess bioremediation treatment in terms of removal efficiency and identification of degradation processes.\r\n\r\nMethodology & Theoretical Orientation: Artificially contaminated water with ten selected pharmaceuticals was used for in vitro experimental treatment with fungus. Controls were defined to identify removal not caused by fungal metabolization. Pharmaceuticals and their degradation products were analyzed by HPLC-HRMS both in water and fungus. A library of previously reported degradation products was used for the screening.\r\n\r\nFindings: Trametes versicolor was in average the most efficient fungus for water treatment in this experiment. Each fungus species studied had considerable differences in removal efficiency of some selected pharmaceuticals and performed degradation by different metabolic pathways. All degradation products detected are reported to be less toxic than the parental pollutant. Some transformation products and parental compounds were detected at the fungal pellet.\r\n\r\nConclusion & Significance: Fungi studied were in average as useful to detoxify water with high pharmaceuticals concentration as conventional wastewater treatment. Scaling up and combining the fungi studied should be done to assess performance and synergy between fungi species. Even though, elimination of solid fungal pellet should be studied as some pollutants were adsorbed onto it.\r\n\r\n\r\n