Annette Bunge
Emerita Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Manifestation of therapeutic or toxic effects following chemical contact with our skin only occurs if there is dermal absorption. The goal of our research is to understand skin’s behavior as a barrier to chemicals that contact the skin whether they are applied intentionally as medicines or accidentally from the environment or during work. We focus specifically on developing methods for measuring and predicting the rate and extent of dermal absorption. This information is used to assess drug delivery from topical dermatological products, including comparisons of generic and reference-listed formulations, and also to evaluate health risks from skin exposures at home, work or in the environment. This multidisciplinary research is conducted in collaboration with scientists and engineers in the United States and around the world. Current projects with colleagues at the University of Bath and Vanderbilt University focus on evaluating equivalence of generic and reference listed drug formulations and molecular simulation of lipids in the outermost skin layer, the stratum corneum.
Education
- BS – State University of New York, Buffalo
- PhD – University of California, Berkeley
Selected Publications
- P. Shamaprasad, C.O. Frame, T.C. Moore, A. Yang, C.R. Iacovella, J.A. Bouwstra, A.L. Bunge, C. McCabe. Using molecular simulation to understand the skin barrier, Progress in Lipid Research, 88, 101184 (2022). doi:10.1016/j.plipres.2022.101184
- P. Shamaprasad, T.C. Moore, D. Xia, C.R. Iacovella, A.L. Bunge, C. McCabe. Multiscale simulation of ternary stratum corneum lipid mixtures: Effects of cholesterol composition., Langmuir, 38, 7496 (2022).
- S. Shukla, A.L. Bunge, H.E. Hassan, A.L. Stinchcomb. Investigator impact on reproducibility of drug bioavailability in stratum corneum sampling by tape stripping. Pharmaceutical Research, 39, 703 (2022) doi: 10.1007/s11095-022-03199-w.
- M. Hoppel, M.A.M. Tabosa, A.L. Bunge, M.B. Delgado-Charro, R.H. Guy. Assessment of drug delivery kinetics to epidermal targets in vivo, AAPS Journal (2021). doi: 10.1208/s12248-021-00571-3.
- M.A.M. Tabosa, M. Hoppel, A.L. Bunge, R.H. Guy, M.B. Delgado-Charro. Predicting topical drug clearance from the skin, Drug Delivery and Translational Research (2021). doi: 10.1007/s13346-020-00864-8
- A. Pensado, W.S. Chiu, S.F. Cordery, A.L. Bunge, M.B. Delgado-Charro, R.H. Guy. Stratum corneum sampling to assess bioequivalence between topical acyclovir products, Pharmaceutical Research, 36, 180 (2019). doi: 10.1007/s11095-019-2707-3
- C. Moore, C.R. Iacovella, A.C. Leonhard, A.L. Bunge, C. McCabe. Molecular dynamics simulations of stratum corneum lipid mixtures: A multiscale perspective, Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 498, 313 (2018). doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2017.09.040
- C. Moore, R. Hartkamp, C.R. Iacovella, A.L. Bunge, C. McCabe, Effect of ceramide tail length on the structure of model stratum corneum lipid bilayers, Biophysical Journal, 114, 113 (2018). doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2017.10.031
- C. Kodiweera, Y. Yang, A.L. Bunge. Characterization of water self-diffusion in human stratum corneum, Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 107, 1131 (2018). doi: 10.1016/j.xphs.2017.12.011
- A. Pensado, W.S. Chiu, M.Z. Shehab, A.L. Bunge, M.B. Delgado-Charro, R.H. Guy, Topical bioavailability of diclofenac from locally-acting, dermatological formulations. International Journal of Pharmaceutics, 529, 55 (2017).
Honors and Awards
- 2011 George R. Brown Medal
- 2010 Faculty Senate Distinguished Lecturer Award
- 1986 Dow Outstanding Young Faculty Award
- 1985 NSF Travel Award to NATO Advanced Study Institute
- 1983 Brown Innovative Teaching Grant