Fatemeh Akhlaghi, Pharm.D., Ph.D.

Research

Research interests include (1) the effect of diabetes mellitus and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver disease (NAFLD) on drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics and (2) Drug development in alcohol use disorder.

Education

Doctor of Pharmacy, University of Mashhad, Iran, 1990
Doctor of Philosophy, University of Sydney, Australia, 1997
Post doctoral research associate, University of Sydney, Australia, 1998
Senior Clinical Scientist, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Selected Publications

Anitha Saravanakumar, Armin Sadighi, Rachel Ryu, and Fatemeh Akhlaghi.  Physicochemical Properties, Biotransformation and Transport Pathways of Established and Newly-Approved Medications: A Systematic Review of Top 200 Most Prescribed Drugs versus FDA Approved Drugs Between 2005 to 2016; Accepted for Publication Clinical Pharmacokinetics.

Farokhnia M, Deschaine SL, Sadighi A, Farinelli LA, Lee MR, Akhlaghi F, Leggio L.  A deeper insight into how GABA-B receptor agonism via baclofen may affect alcohol seeking and consumption: lessons learned from a human laboratory investigation.  Mol Psychiatry. 2018 Oct 31. doi: 10.1038/s41380-018-0287-y. [Epub ahead of print]

Jamwal R, de la Monte SM, Ogasawara K, Adusumalli S, Barlock BB, Akhlaghi F. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and diabetes is associated with decreased CYP3A4 protein expression and activity in human liver. Mol Pharm. 2018 May 24. doi: 10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.8b00159. [Epub ahead of print]

Lee MR, Tapocik JD, Ghareeb M, Schwandt ML, Dias AA, Le AN, Cobbina E, Farinelli LA, Bouhlal S, Farokhnia M, Heilig M, Akhlaghi F, Leggio L. The novel ghrelin receptor inverse agonist PF-5190457 administered with alcohol: preclinical safety experiments and a phase 1b human laboratory study. Mol Psychiatry. 2018 May 4. doi: 10.1038/s41380-018-0064-y. [Epub ahead of print]; PubMed PMID: 29728704.

Lee MR, Scheidweiler KB, Diao XX, Akhlaghi F, Cummins A, Huestis MA, Leggio L, Averbeck BB. Oxytocin by intranasal and intravenous routes reaches the cerebrospinal fluid in rhesus macaques: determination using a novel oxytocin assay.  Mol Psychiatry. 2018;23(1):115-22. doi: 10.1038/mp.2017.27. PubMed PMID: 28289281.

Ghareeb M, Gohh RY, Akhlaghi F. Tacrolimus concentration in saliva of kidney transplant recipients: factors influencing the relationship with whole blood concentrations. Clin Pharmacokinet. 2018. doi: 10.1007/s40262-017-0626-1. PubMed PMID: 29330784.

Jamwal R, Topletz AR, Ramratnam B, Akhlaghi F. Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass-spectrometry for simple and simultaneous quantification of cannabinoids. J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci. 2017;1048:10-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jchromb.2017.02.007. PubMed PMID: 28192758; PMCID: PMC5697720.

Jamwal R, Barlock BJ, Adusumalli S, Ogasawara K, Simons BL, Akhlaghi F. Multiplex and Label-Free Relative Quantification Approach for Studying Protein Abundance of Drug Metabolizing Enzymes in Human Liver Microsomes Using SWATH-MS. J Proteome Res. 2017;16(11):4134-43. doi: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.7b00505. PubMed PMID: 28944677.

Cobbina E, Akhlaghi F. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) – pathogenesis, classification, and effect on drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters. Drug Metab Rev. 2017;49(2):197-211. doi: 10.1080/03602532.2017.1293683. PubMed PMID: 28303724; PMCID: PMC5576152 (recognized as the best paper published in 2017 in Drug Metabolism Review)

Akhlaghi F, Matson KL, Mohammadpour AH, Kelly M, Karimani A. Clinical pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of antihyperglycemic medications in children and adolescents with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Clin Pharmacokinet. 2017;56(6):561-71. doi: 10.1007/s40262-016-0472-6. PubMed PMID: 27832452; PMCID: PMC5425330.

Recent Patent

United States Patent Application US 10,126,316 B2; F Akhlaghi, M Ghareeb; Systems and Methods for the Measurement of Tacrolimus in Oral Fluids by Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry. https://patents.google.com/patent/US10126316B2/en