Mailing address:
University of Colorado School of Pharmacy
Mail Stop C238
12850 E. Montview Blvd. V20-4118
Aurora, CO 80045
Office Location:
Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Building (V20)
Fourth Floor
Room 4118
Lab Location:
Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Building (V20)
Fourth Floor
Room 4440D(S)
Contact:
Affiliations:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
- American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS)
- Faculty Advisor for the AAPS Student Chapter at the University of Colorado
- American Chemical Society
- Center for Global Health at the University of Colorado Denver
- Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute
- Globalization of Pharmaceutics Education Network (GPEN)
- Faculty Representative for the University of Colorado Denver – Full Member Institution
- International Society for Vaccines (ISV)
- Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Member – Editorial Board)
- University of Colorado Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology
Training and Education:
- BS, Chemical Engineering (Yale University)
- MS, Chemical Engineering (University of Colorado at Boulder)
- PhD, Pharmaceutical Sciences (University of Colorado Health Sciences Center)
- Postdoctoral , Pharmaceutical Chemistry (University of Kansas – Lawrence)
Research Interests:
Vaccine stability, novel adjuvants, aluminum salt adjuvants, antigen-adjuvant interactions, protein stability in drug delivery/storage devices
To achieve a robust immune response, many vaccines require adjuvants. In vaccines approved for use in humans, the most common class of adjuvants is the aluminum salt adjuvants. This class of adjuvants has been in use for over seven decades, yet formulations containing these adjuvants are far from optimal – certainly from the standpoint of thermal stability and perhaps antigen/adjuvant interactions as well. My lab is interested in approaches to improve the thermal stability of vaccines containing particulate adjuvants. We are also interested in developing novel adjuvants and using biophysical techniques to investigate how the antigen/adjuvant interaction affects antigen structure and stability.
My laboratory also has an active research project investigating the stability of therapeutic proteins in novel and traditional drug storage/delivery devices.
Teaching:
PharmD Program:
- PHRD 5600 Science Foundations I: Chemistry and Pharmaceutics
- PHRD 5200 P3 Seminar (2005-Present)
Graduate Program:
- PHSC/BMST 7354 Structural Analysis of Biomolecules I
- PHSC/TXCL 7310 Fundamentals of Pharmaceutical Sciences
- TXCL/PHSC 7400 Ethical Issues in Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Sciences
- PHSC 7568 Seminar in Pharmaceutical Sciences – Course Coordinator
- PHSC/BMST 7350 Proteins
- PHSC 7330 Issues in Drug Development
Representative Publications:
- Braun LJ, Jezek J, Peterson S, Tyagi A, Perkins S, Sylvester D, Guy M, Lal M, Priddy S, Plzak H, Kristensen D, and Chen D. Characterization of a thermostable hepatitis B vaccine formulation. Vaccine (2009) 27 4609-4614[Epub ahead of print June 10, 2009].
- Jezek J, Chen D, Watson L. Crawford J, Perkins S, Tyagi A, and Braun LJ. A heat-stable hepatitis B vaccine formulation. Human Vaccines (2009) 5(8) 529-535.
- Braun LJ, Tyagi A, Perkins S, Carpenter J, Sylvester D, Guy M, Kristensen D, and Chen D. Development of a freeze-stable formulation for vaccines containing aluminum salt adjuvants. Vaccine (2009) 27 72-79[Epub ahead of print].
- Chen D, Tyagi A, Carpenter J, Perkins S, Sylvester D, Guy M, Kristensen DD, and Braun LJ. Characterization of the freeze sensitivity of a hepatitis B vaccine. Human Vaccines (2009) 5 26-32. [Epub ahead of print].
- Publications: Google Scholar
- Publications: PubMed