Research Interests

Research in our laboratory centers on applications of analytical chemistry to the study of biological problems including: (a) studies of the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) of drug substances and environmental toxicants; and (b) the separation of drug substances using capillary electrophoresis.

A. Our studies on the ADME of drug substances and environmental toxicants with a goal of developing methods for assessing fetal exposure.  We have developed an animal model, using pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats, which has allowed us to study the placental transport of various drug substances.

We are now using our expertise in LC-MS-MS and the pregnant rat model to study the maternal-fetal transport of anti-viral compounds.  The ultimate goal is to improve treatments for preventing vertical transmission of HIV.  Presently, AZT is the only drug which has been shown clinically to be effective in preventing maternal-fetal transmission of HIV.  We have been studying azidodeoxyuridine (AZDU), acyclovir, lamivudine, didanosine and stavudine to see how these compounds relate to AZT for fetal uptake.  One of the most interesting aspects of this work has been the investigation of pharmacokinetic drug-drug interactions among combination therapies.  This work is being conducted in collaboration with Dr. Catherine A. White in the College of Pharmacy.

We are also involved in studies of the common environmental toxicant trichloroethylene (TCE) and its metabolites.  To date we have concentrated on the development of sensitive GC-MS and LC-MS-MS methods to assay these compounds.  We have completed our development for the analysis of TCE and are using this method to investigate tissue distributions and trace-level pharmacokinetics of this compound.  We are continuing our efforts to determine the metabolites and are exploring new techniques such as solid phase microextraction and accelerator mass spectrometry to improve on our existing method for the determination of TCE.  These studies would allow for realistic risk assessment of this common environmental contaminant.  This work has been done in collaboration with Dr. James V. Bruckner in the College of Pharmacy.

We are beginning our work on the development of sensitive assays for the pesticide deltamethrin.  The goal of this project is to use the pregnant rat model and to determine the possible adverse health effects from low level exposures to this model compound.  This work is being conducted in collaboration with Drs. Catherine A. White, James V. Bruckner from the College of Pharmacy and Dr. Jeffrey Fisher from the College of Environmental Health.

B.  Our work with chiral and achiral separations using capillary electrophoresis has been quite exciting.  We have successfully applied molecular modeling to study the interactions of barbiturates with cyclodextrins and compared these results with capillary electrophoresis.  We have found that calculations of the binding strength of the barbiturate-cyclodextrin complex can accurately predict chiral resolution, as well as migration order for a mixture of barbiturates.  We further extended this work to the study of barbiturate-cyclodextrin non-covalent complexes using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry and showed that there was a high degree of correlation between the intensity of these gas-phase complexes and their solution-phase binding in capillary electrophoresis.  We have recently extended these techniques to the study of local anesthetic-cyclodextrin complexes.

Current Group Members

Michael G. Bartlett, Associate Professor

Amy M. Dixon, Graduate Research Assistant
Yazen Al-Nouti, Graduate Research Assistant
Yan Ding, Graduate Research Assistant
Jason M. White, Graduate Research Assistant
Shonetta D. Gregg, Graduate Research Assistant

Former Group Members

PingPing Wang, Ph.D. (1998)
Karthik Srinivasan, Ph.D. (2000)
Stacy D. Brown, Ph.D. (2002)
David C. Delinsky, Ph.D. (2003)
T. Nicole Clark, Ph.D. (2003)

Recent Publications

T.N. Clark, C.A. White C.K. Chu and M.G. Bartlett
“Determination of 3’-Azido-2’,3’ Dideoxyuridine (AZDU) in Maternal Plasma, Amniotic Fluid, Fetal and Placental Tissues by High Performance Liquid Chromatography.”
Journal of Chromatography B: Biomedical Applications, 755, 165-172 (2001).

K. Vishwanathan, M.G. Bartlett and J.T. Stewart
“Determination of Gatifloxacin in Human Plasma by Liquid Chromatography Electrospray Tandem Mass Spectrometry.”
Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, 15, 915-919 (2001).

X. Xu, M.G. Bartlett and J.T. Stewart
“Determination of Degradation Products from Sumatriptan Succinate Using LC-MS and LC-MS-MS.”
Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, 26, 367-377 (2001).

M.G. Bartlett and K.A. Morrow
“Method for Assessing Course Knowledge in a Large Classroom Environment: An Improved Version of the Minute Paper.”
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 65, 264-267 (2001).

D.C. Delinsky, K. Srinivasan, H.M. Solomon and M.G. Bartlett
“Simultaneous Capillary Electrophoresis Determination of Barbiturates From Meconium.”
Journal of Liquid Chromatography and Related Technologies, 25(1), 113-123 (2002).

S.D. Brown, C.A. White, C.K. Chu and M.G. Bartlett
“Determination of Acyclovir in Maternal Plasma, Amniotic Fluid, Fetal and Placental Tissue by High Performance Liquid Chromatography.”
Journal of Chromatography B: Biomedical Applications, 772(2), 327-334 (2002).

B. Fan, M.G. Bartlett and J.T. Stewart
“Determination of Lamivudine / Stavudine / Efavirenz in Human Serum Using Liquid Chromatography Electrospray Tandem Mass Spectrometry.”
Biomedical Chromatography, 16, 383-389 (2002).

Y. Al-nouti and M.G. Bartlett
“Comparison of Local Anesthetic – Cyclodextrin Non-Covalent Complexes Using Capillary Electrophoresis and Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry.”
Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 13, 928-935 (2002).

S.D. Brown, C.A. White and M.G. Bartlett
“Hydrophobic Interaction Liquid Chromatography Electrospray Mass Spectrometry Determination of Acyclovir in Pregnant Rat Plasma and Tissues.”
Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, 16, 1871-1876 (2002).

K. Vishwanathan, M.G. Bartlett and J.T. Stewart
“Determination of Moxifloxacin in Human Plasma by Liquid Chromatography Electrospray Tandem Mass Spectrometry.”
Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, 30, 961-968 (2002).

S.D. Brown, C.A. White and M.G. Bartlett
“High Performance Liquid Chromatographic Determination of Acyclovir and Zidovudine in Maternal Plasma, Amniotic Fluid, Fetal and Placental Tissues Using Ultraviolet Detection.”
Journal of Liquid Chromatography and Related Technologies, 25, 2857-2871 (2002).

S.D. Brown, S. Muralidhara, J.V. Bruckner and M.G. Bartlett
“Trace Level Determination of Trichloroethylene from Liver, Lung and Kidney Tissues by Gas Chromatography / Mass Spectrometry.”
Journal of Chromatography B: Biomedical Applications, 783, 319-325 (2003).

S.D. Brown, M.G. Bartlett and C.A. White
“Comparative Pharmacokinetics of Intravenous Acyclovir, Zidovudine and Acyclovir / Zidovudine Therapies in the Pregnant Rat."
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, 47, 991-996 (2003).

S.D. Brown, A.M. Dixon, J.V. Bruckner and M.G. Bartlett
“A Validated GC-MS Assay for the Quantitation of Trichloroethylene (TCE) from Drinking Water.”
International Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry, 83, 427-432 (2003).

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This Web Site is maintained by Michael G. Bartlett.  Any questions concerning this site should be directed to bartlett@rx.uga.edu

Last Updated 7-14-2003
Last Reviewed 7-14-2003