The Institute of Pharmacology & Toxicology and Biochemical Pharmaceutics (IPTBP) of Zhejiang University was founded in 2006 on the basis of two secondary disciplines—Pharmacology and microbiology & Biochemical Pharmaceutics. IPTBP consists of five research laboratories and one research group: Tumor and Endocrine Pharmacology Laboratory, Neuropharmacology Laboratory, Cardiovascular & Cerebrovascular and Liver Pharmacology Laboratory, Drug Toxicology Laboratory, Biochemical Pharmaceutics Laboratory and Retinal Pharmacology & Pathology Research Team.

      IPTBPcurrently has 24 professional researchers, including 8 full professors, 6 associate professors; among them 18 with Ph.D. degrees. There is also both a “the National Scientific Fund for Outstanding Youth” Professor and a Qiushi Chair Professor among the faculty. Furthermore, 3 professors are enrolled in Programs for New Century Excellent Talents of the Ministry of Education, and ten are enrolled in Zhejiang Provincial New Century 151 Excellent Talents Program. It has more than 20 doctoral students and 40 graduate students.  IPTBPalso has established a National Third-level Laboratory in the Chinese Traditional Medicine and Drugs, a Pharmacological Discipline as a key discipline in Zhejiang province, a key discipline of Chinese Medicine’s Pharmacology in Zhejiang province, a Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicine’s Pharmacology& Toxicology in Zhejiang province, and an innovative team specialized in key technology of small molecules drug’s research and development. It has also participated in building a Key Laboratories for the Treatment and Prevention of Special Damage in the Army, a Key Laboratories for Medical Neural Biology in the Ministry of Health, an innovative team specialized in neurological and psychiatric disorders in the Ministry of Education. It has set up a group of first-class Pharmacology laboratories like “Evaluation and Research Center of Drug Safety in Zhejiang University”, which has got its authentication of SFDA.

       Over the past five years, our institute received over 20 items of national scientific research grants, including a Drug Efficacy Platform Project and a project for Selecting New Drug under the policy of “New Drug Development in the Eleventh Five-year Plan”, a project for Selecting New Drug under the policy of “New Drug Development in the Twelfth Five-year Plan”, a National Key Basic Research and Development Plans (“973” Plan), a project supported by NIHRO1 foundation of the United States, a National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, a key project of the National Natural Science Foundation, a project of International Cooperation and Exchanges, a major program of the National Natural Science Foundation, more than 10 items of General Program from the National Natural Science Foundation, and more than 10 grants from the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province. The institute has achieved 22 items of National Invention Patent, and has applied for 37 items of National Invention Patent. In total, it has published nearly 350 pieces of academic articles, among which 80% are included by SCI. In addition, the institute has edited and published 5 books, including teaching materials and books in science and technology, and has participated in the edition of 4 books.

      Our institute has established a stable and close cooperation with famous pharmaceutical companies and divisions (including Shanghai Drug Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Pharmaceutical University, “Roche” Research and Development Center in Shanghai, China, Haizheng pharmaceutical Co., LTD. in Zhejiang, Xiansheng pharmaceutical Co., LTD in Jiangsu). It also set up academic exchange programs with research institutes and other universities in and out of China. And through its close cooperation, it has promoted the ability as well as competitiveness of new drug research & development of Zhejiang University, further contributed to the development of new drug and pharmacological discipline in China.

Leadership

Deputy Director: Qiaojun He, Professor (Tel: 86-571-88208400; Email: qiaojunhe@zju.edu.cn)

Vice Director: Feng Han, Professor (Tel: 86-571-88208402; Email: changhuahan@zju.edu.cn)

Director Assistant: Hong Zhu, Associate Professor (Tel: 86-571-88208401; Email：hongzhu@zju.edu.cn)

Research Team and Research Direction

1. Tumor and Endocrine Pharmacology Laboratory
   • Leader:Bo Yang Professor

Faculty & Staff：Professor: Bo Yang Ph.D., Qiaojun He Ph.D.

AssociateProfessor: Huijun Zhou Ph.D., Haoshu Wu Ph.D., Hong Zhu Ph.D., Ling Ding Ph.D.

Assistant Research Fellow: Peihua Luo Ph.D., Meidan Ying Ph.D.

Technician: Shanshan Shi

• Research interests and areas

Our research mainly focuses on the molecular cancer pharmacology and anti-diabetic pharmacology, including mechanisms of drug resistance especially the modulation of signal transduction pathways by hypoxia in cancer cells, regulation of cancer cell proliferation/differentiation transition, investigation of novel preclinical testing for cancer combination therapy, and development of new models for drug screening and evaluation, post-translational modification of proteins involved in differentiation of leukemia cells,  and molecular pharmacological mechanisms of novel anticancer drug candidates and anti-diabetic drug candidates.

• Main research achievements

In recent years, complimentary set-up in both basic and applied research fields, efforts are directed towards the studies of new chemical entities, pre-clinical evaluation and pharmaceutical development. We set up a batch of modules for anti-tumor new compound design and models for anti-tumor new drugs screening. A number of drug candidates are currently under pre-clinical evaluations, and we have already accomplished more than 50 new drug evaluation and development projects for industry companies, and discovered 6 promising anti-tumor new drug candidates. Our lab received 17 items of national scientific research grants, including a Drug Efficacy Platform Project under the policy of “New Drug Development in the Eleventh Five-year Plan”, a project for Selecting New Drug under the policy of “New Drug Development in the Eleventh Five-year Plan”, a project for Selecting New Drug under the policy of “New Drug Development in the Twelfth Five-year Plan”, two projects supported by National Key Basic Research and Development Plans (“973” Plan), 12 items of General Program from the National Natural Science Foundation, a major program supported by Health Bureau of Zhejiang Province, 5 projects of International Cooperation, a research program supported by Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, a key project of Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang Province, a project for Natural Science Talents from Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province. We published more than 100 academic articles in SCI journals. Most of the research articles are published in a number of prestigious and international journals for cancer research. We have obtained 3 items of second prize of “Science and Technology Progress Award of Zhejiang Province”.

1. Cardiovascular & Cerebrovascular and Liver Pharmacology Laboratory

       Leader: Yijia Lou Professor

Faculty & Staff：Professor: Yijia Lou, Ph.D; Feng Han, Ph.D.

                Associate Professor: Danyan Zhu, Ph.D; Narenmandula, Ph.D.

                Assistant Research Fellow: Yan Liu M.S., Yun Tian M.S., Meihua Liao, Huiqing Cheng.

• Research interests

Our Research and specialty interests focus on three interrelated themes.

 (1) Stem cell biology and regenerative medicine/ Drug discovery.

Our research team was the first team to create the drug screening platform by stem cells for severe heart diseases, liver and neurodegenerative disorders in China. Meanwhile, the platform will propel our research on the regenerative medicine and stem cell based drug discovery.

(2)Cardio-Cerebral Vascular and Hepatic Pharmacology

The overall goal of research is to understand the molecular regulation of pathophysiological changes in Cardio-Cerebral Vascular and Hepatic diseases. We use various biochemical and molecular biology research tools to address the intracellular signaling transduction to identify candidate drug targets.

(3) Drug toxicology

With respect to toxicology, we are currently focusing on several topics, including: (1) effects of arsenic trioxide and its intermediates on induction of differentiation of NB4 cells and PML-RARa sumoylation; (2) arsenic speciation, exposure, metabolism, and health effects; (3) the molecular mechanisms for the carcinogenic effects of arsenicals (e.g., thioarsenicals) and its metabolism; (4) the role of AS3MT (expression, genotypes, etc.) in human hepatocytes and leukemia cells, etc.

• Main research achievements

Our research team has obtained more than 28 grants from different sources for scientific research, including 15 grants from National Natural Science Foundations, 1 grant from sub-topic of National 863 plan, 1grant from sub-plat building of the 11-5 Key New Drug Development program of Chinese Medicine Modernization Project, 2 grants from Outstanding Youth Project of Zhejiang Province Natural Science Foundations, 1 grant from the key Project of Zhejiang Province Natural Science Foundations,2 funds for returned overseas from Ministry of Education, 1 international cooperation granted by Zhejiang province Scientific Development Program, 1 International cooperation project for a Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang Province, 1 Science and Technology Research Key Project from the Ministry of Education,1 Commerce Department assistance to Indonesia's natural drug plant research and development project, 1 Zhejiang Economic and Trade Commission of Chinese medicine and modern special project, 1 Zhejiang major medical and health science and technology project, 2 “10-5 National Research Guiding Projects”. Our team has successfully applied for 19 national invention patents, and 8 items invention patents has been authorized. In addition, our team has also published more than 100 papers in refereed journals, and a few textbooks such as “Drug Toxicology”, “Preclinical Drug Evaluation”, “Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology”, “Pharmacology”, and “Methodology of Biomedical Research”, etc.

We have also organized many academic events including international and national academic conferences. In particular, we have successfully organized the “New Century Forum – Food Drug and human health" international conference in 2009 and “Cross-Strait Pharmaceutical Science Symposium” in 2010. The team members have won multiple awards over the years for our outstanding success and continue to grow.  For example, the Zhejiang Science and Technology Progress Award, Chinese Pharmacological Society-Servier Young pharmacology workers Prize, Zhejiang Pharmaceutical Academic Institution of Medical Technology Award, and Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Excellent Paper Award.

1. Neuropharmacology Laboratory
2. Leader: Prof. Zhong CHEN

Faculty & Staff： Professor: Zhong CHEN, Ph.D

Associate Professors: Shihong ZHANG, Ph.D, Weiwei HU, Ph.D

Assistant Research Fellow: Xiangnan ZHANG, Ph.D

Technician: Weiwei HOU, MSc

• Research interests and areas

Our research focuses on investigation of pathogenesis and novel drug targets for epilepsy, stroke and chronic neuropathic pain. The main research directions include: Neuropharmacology of histamine and its receptors; Molecular mechanisms of development and therapy for epilepsy, brain injury and neuropathic pain; Development and evaluation of drugs against epilepsy, stroke and neuropathic pain.

• Main research achievements

The director, Prof Chen, is the winner of National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (obtained Excellent grade in midterm and final assessment), Qiushi Distinguished Professor of Zhejiang University, and State Council Expert for Special Allowance. He is currently executive dean of College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and the vice dean of School of Medicine, Zhejiang University. He is also the principal of Innovation Team of Key Technology for Development of Small Molecule Drugs, Zhejiang Province, one of the academic leaders of Innovation Team of Ministry of Education, and the vice dean of Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Ministry of Health and Zhejiang Province. In recent years, with the support of National Science Fund for Outstanding Youths, Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation, NIHR01 Project, 973 Project, National Major Project of New Drug Development and several National Natural Science Foundations, he conducted a series of work on the neuropharmacology of histamine and its receptors and molecular mechanisms of brain injury and epilepsy. The creative achievements we obtained established our specific and influential research system. We has published 106 academic papers in SCI-embodied journals including Nature Neurosci, J Neurosci, Mol Med, Br J Pharmacol, Biochem Pharmacol, Free Rad Biol Med, etc. The total impact factor is 380 and the citation is 1316. Prof. Chen has won Second Prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award once, First and Second Prize of Ministerial or Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award four times and Third Prize of Chinese Medical Science and Technology Progress Award once. He has trained up 11 Ph.D and 18 MSc students. One of them got the Nomination Prize of National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation and one got Huipu Scholarship of Ministry of Education and two got Zhukezhen Prize of Zhejiang University.

1. Drug Toxicology Laboratory
2.  Leader:  Qiaojun He Professor

Faculty & Staff：Professor: Qiaojun He Ph.D.

Assistant Research Fellow: Peihua Luo Ph.D., Xiaochun Yang Ph.D., Qinjie Weng Ph.D., Difeng Zhu M.S., Jianshu Lou M.S.

Technician: Li Ping M.S., Renhua Gai M.S., Chunqin Lin, Chenxing Yuan, Chao Chen, Jielu Dai, Jiani Lang, Jie Fang, Yuhui Jiang, Qiaoqiao Li, Ling Fan.

• Research interests and areas

With a solid supporting from Zhejiang University Drug Safety Evaluation Center (GLP laboratory), our research mainly focuses on drug toxicology and new drug preclinical safety evaluation research. Our main research fields include molecular mechanism of cardiac toxicity, liver toxicity, neurotoxicity, kidney toxicity for anti-cancer drug, new methods and animal models for drug toxicology evaluation, development of protective agent against drug toxicity based on toxic targets, and new drugs preclinical evaluation.

• Main research achievements

Our lab received 23 items of scientific research grants, including 2 projects of international cooperation, 4 items of General Program from the National Natural Science Foundation, 6 research programs supported by Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, a project for Natural Science Talents from Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, a research program supported by Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, a key project of Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang Province, a key medical research project supported by Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, 7 general research projects supported by Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province. We published dozens of academic articles in SCI journals. Most of the research articles are published in a number of prestigious and international journals for toxicologyresearch. We have obtained 3 items of second prize of “Science and Technology Progress Award of Zhejiang Province”.

1. Biochemical Pharmaceutics Laboratory
2. Leader:  Shuqing Chen Professor

Faculty & Staff：Professor: Shuqing Chen Ph.D., Mizhou Hui Ph.D., Junyan Hong Ph.D.

Assistant Research Fellow: Furong Wang Ph.D., Xin Gao Ph.D.

Technician: Yinchun Xu

• Research interests and areas

1. One of the purposes in our lab is to elaborate the individual differences in the duration of disease occurrence, development and treatment by study of gene polymorphism and somatic mutation. 2. We make use of recombinant DNA technology to express bioactive proteins in order to make technical reservesfor novel biotechnology drug discovery and production. 3. We utilize biochemical and immunological technology to develop advanced diagnostic technique in order to serve the diagnostic reagent industry.

• Main research achievements

In the research area of drug metabolizing enzymes, by studying CYP2D6, CYP2C19 and other drug metabolizing enzymes, we have revealed the unique metabolic characteristics of Chinese people. We have built and expressed more than 100 drug metabolizing enzymes and their variants, which form the largest drug metabolizing enzyme library in the domestic. In our research, compounds with inducing effect in important Chinese herbal ingredients are discovered by investigating the induction of drug metabolizing enzymes mediated by PXR, PPAR, CAR and other nuclear receptors. We found that gene polymorphism detected actually could be divided into two types, one is inheritable SNPs, and the other is somatic mutations. The former is innate and the latter is the result of the interaction between cell and environment. SNPs reflect the individual physical basis and characteristics, while somatic mutations reflect the initiation and progress of the cytopathological process. It is of great significance to distinguish the two types of polymorphism so that the disease occurrence and development can be elaborated. Moreover, since environmental pollutants play a leading role in somatic mutation, our team raised several viewpoints that the detection of internal exposure to environmental pollutants is conducive to health monitoring, and the  preservation of gene samples in the progress of human growth is beneficial to tracking disease occurrence and progress. In the research area of genetic engineering drugs, we conducted the secondary development of staphylococcin, a traditional biochemical drug. Our  research discovered the effective constituents of staphylococcin and proposed new manufacturing technique and QC scheme which can effectively reduce allergenic heterologous protein impurities. By transforming genetic engineering drugs with short half-life into fusion proteins, we thus harvested the second generation of genetic engineering  drugs such as HAS-PTH, HAS-IL-1RA, HAS-HGH, etc. The transformation successfully extended drug half-life and improved their therapeutic effects. We coupled antibodies to anti-cancer reagents and made progress in antibody mutant design, coupling connector design and molecular modification of chemical drugs. To solve the problem that the product of yeast expression contains complex components, we conducted  the reform of host yeast, including the knock-out of protease gene, and the knock-in of human glycosylase. We have published more than 130 academic articles, 38 of them are included by SCI (The highest impact factor was 34, most cited paper was 158 times by others). We have accomplished 3 items of scientific research, 2 of them won third prize of “Science and Technology Progress Award of Zhejiang Province”, 1 item won second prize of “Science and Technology Progress Award of Zhejiang Province”.

1. Retinal Pharmacology & Pathology Research Team.
2. Team Leader：Yalin Wu Professor

Faculty & Staff：Professor/Researcher: Yalin Wu Ph.D

• Research interests and areas

Our research mainly focuses on an interdisciplinary frontier field of biology and chemistry, including: (1) pathogenesis and treatments of retinal macular degeneration; (2) the ligand/receptor interactions in visual signal transduction pathway; (3) research and development of natural medicines for targeting therapies of some disorders (e.g. macular degeneration)

• Main research achievements

(1) To develop new drugs with low toxicity (anti-tumor, anti-aging, etc.) and food additives, 11 natural polysaccharide molecules were isolated and structurally characterized.

(2) An effective method evaluating the qualitative variation of tea leaves was built by using a combination of HPLC and circular dichroism spectrometry, and conferred an industrialization prospect.

(3) In the signaling transducin pathways of visual cells, we confirmed the binding sites on rhodopsin interacting with the carboxyl terminus (Gt(60-71)farnesyl) of γ-subunit of G protein transducin (Gt), which gave reliable evidences for targeting therapies of the disorders of physiologically signaling pathway that took place in retina.  

(4)We first reported A2-DHP-PE as a novel therapeutic target of macular degeneration, and also preliminarily proposed its in vivo biosynthetic pathway.

(5)We first reported the detailed photo-cleavage process of A2E induced by blue light illumination, and also elucidated the structures and formation mechanisms of 8 cleavage products. Interestingly, methylglyoxal, a chemical with high cytotoxicity, was found to be released from the photocleavage process of this bisretinoid, which expanded the damaging mechanisms of eyes resulting from light-mediated process of A2E.

(6) To find an exogenous medicine for treating fundus macular degeneration by direct degradation of A2E in vivo, horseradish peroxidase (HRP) was first utilized to effectively degrade A2E in RPE cells, and the structures and formative mechanisms of some enzyme-mediated products were also elucidated. This work has a very significant clinical value.

(7) We also first reported the sources and distribution of fluorescence generated from fundus lesions, which provided directly diagnostic proofs for the levels of pathologic change of retinal macular degeneration.

We have published more than 30 research articles in domestic and foreign academic journals, and 26 of them are indexed by SCI. Prof. Wu is invited as a reviewer by 12 domestic and foreign academic journals including J. Biol. Chem., Food Chem., Carbohydr. Polym., and as a guest editor of three SCI journals (Curr. Pharm. Biotechnol., Curr. Med. Chem., and Med. Chem.).

Address:The Institute of Pharmacology & Toxicology and Biochemical Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, 866# Yuhangtang Rd., Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310058, China.

Please visit: www.zjupharmacology.com