UCI postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Juan Hu, has been awarded a prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) K99 Pathway to Independence Award.

The NIH Pathway to Independence Award provides an opportunity for promising postdoctoral scientists to receive both mentored and independent research support. The award will fund her work in the Paegel Lab for an additional two years, then as part of a continuation of the award, she will receive another three years of funding to start her independent academic laboratory.

During her time in the Paegel Lab, Hu developed a high-speed molecular permeation measurement technology that resulted in a significant finding: molecules permeate through membranes at different rates than their mirror images (enantiomers), an observation that at once touches upon fundamental concepts in medicinal chemistry and the chemical origins of life.

“Dr. Hu has done phenomenal work with me thus far,” says Dr. Brian Paegel, professor at the UC Irvine School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences. “Her work has allowed us to determine which molecules are membrane-permeable. It turns out that molecular permeation is a predictor of drug oral bioavailability, and the sole criterion left for molecules that break the classic rules of druglikeness — it is the drug hunter’s ‘light in dark places, when all other lights go out.’”

“Cell membrane permeability is a fundamental but underexplored area,” says Hu. “We will be using this new technology to generate large-scale structure permeation measurements with an eye toward emerging modalities, such as targeted protein degradation and RNA-targeted drug discovery.”

Hu intends to continue her research as an independent faculty member to generate more predictive models of molecular permeation and thereby revolutionize existing lead optimization paradigms. 

Since 2007, there have been 21 K99 fellows at UCI. Hu is the first K99 awardee from the UCI School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences.