Visiting Researcher, Medicine
School of Medicine

Pharmacokinetics; Drug Metabolism; Hepatobiliary Disposition of Drugs; Blood-Brain Barrier; Liver Diseases

Professor and Chair-Department of Biomedical & Pharmaceutical Sciences-Chapman University

Dr. Mehvar has received several awards for both his teaching and research accomplishments, including multiple American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Innovation in Teaching Awards, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center President’s Excellence in Research Award, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center President’s Excellence in Teaching Award, and Texas Tech University System Chancellor’s Council Distinguished Teaching Award. In recognition of his teaching accomplishments, recently (April 2014), Dr. Mehvar was inducted into the Academy of the Pharmacology Educators of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET). He also received the 2016 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Distinguished Scholar Award.

Dr. Mehvar’s research is focused on the role of the liver in drug disposition and the pharmacological approaches to treat liver diseases. With regard to drug disposition, recent studies in his laboratory have focused on the inflammatory mediators, such as cytokines and nitric oxide, affecting cytochrome P450-mediated drug metabolism. As for the liver diseases, the focus has been on the reduction of rejection in liver transplantation and attenuation of cold and warm ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury. The latter studies have resulted in the development of a novel dextran prodrug of methylprednisolone, which selectively accumulates in the liver, releasing the active drug for an extended period of time (> two weeks) and reducing the IR injury and graft rejection after transplantation in animal models. Very recently, his laboratory has focused on the effects of hepatic IR injury on the transporter- and/or cytochrome P450-mediated hepatobiliary and brain disposition of drugs. In particular, his group is interested in investigating how liver diseases might affect the blood-brain barrier permeability and neurologic complications observed after liver surgical procedures. Dr. Mehvar also conducts educational research related to ability-based learning approaches, online tools for active learning in pharmacokinetics, and curricular outcome assessment strategies.

Please click here for a partial list of research articles indexed in PubMed.

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=6292

Last updated
11/02/2016