Understanding drug uptake and binding within targeted disease micro-environments in patients: a new tool for translational medicine

Matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) was used providing evidence into the fate (destinations and distributions) of administered drugs within tumor regions of lung compartments.We hereby present a pulmonary study in which we have isolated lung tissue after inhaled drug administration and then localized the drug within airway wall compartments. The histology also provides evidence of drug binding to smooth muscle cell microenvironments. We also identified lung tissue regions with tumor cell invasion in these COPD patients.The ultimate goal is to identify bridging comprehension that forms a knowledge base that can be used by society to develop a better treatment and medicine for patients. Our results demonstrated that robust imaging data could be generated confirming drug localization in pulmonary regions of COPD patients with tumor pathology.Tallinn Medical Research Ethical Committee decision #1724, 18.06.2009Translational medicine (TM) is not really a new research area, but rather a compilation of a number of research areas that the scientific community has been involved in for the last decades, in the clinic, academia as well as industry. TM is in general referred to as the medical practice that builds on a work-flow that involves evidence-based medicine derived from linking knowledge about disease pathways observed clinically with laboratory models of disease that eventually develops into new intervention and treatment paradigms [1].Personalized medicine is in this context linked to a targeted treatment: where a protein target is selected that has key regulating roles within a specific disease [2-5].TM is a research area that integrates basic research as well as social and societal infrastructures where the goal is to improve and deliver optimal patient care [6,7]. In this respect, the concept of 4P Medicine has been introduced: preventive measures which may extend beyond primary healthcare services to preventive measure