Akita Tomomi
Department of Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokyo University of Science.
Yakugaku Zasshi. 2025;145(1):1-6. doi: 10.1248/yakushi.24-00139.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and current drug treatments is limited to symptomatic therapy. Thus, there is an urgent need for development of new treatments to repair alveolar destruction. To regenerate the destroyed alveoli, we focused on the differentiation of alveolar epithelial progenitor cells into type I or type II alveolar epithelial cells that constitute the alveoli. Our concept of alveolar regeneration therapy is based on developing a drug delivery system (DDS) and dry powder inhalation that can efficiently deliver new alveolar regeneration drugs, which were discovered using human alveolar epithelial progenitor cells, to stem cells present on the surface of the alveoli of COPD patients, thereby inducing alveolar regeneration. This review article summarizes our data on the discovery of the synthetic retinoid Am80 as a candidate drug for alveolar regeneration, the construction of a DDS that utilizes a biological mechanism that enhances its effect on alveolar regeneration, and the formulation design of a dry powder inhalation.
慢性阻塞性肺疾病（COPD）的特征为慢性支气管炎和肺气肿，目前的药物治疗仅限于对症治疗。因此，迫切需要开发新的治疗方法来修复肺泡破坏。为了使受损肺泡再生，我们专注于将肺泡上皮祖细胞分化为构成肺泡的I型或II型肺泡上皮细胞。我们的肺泡再生治疗理念基于开发一种药物递送系统（DDS）和干粉吸入剂，该系统能够有效地将利用人肺泡上皮祖细胞发现的新型肺泡再生药物递送至COPD患者肺泡表面的干细胞，从而诱导肺泡再生。这篇综述文章总结了我们关于以下方面的数据：发现合成维甲酸Am80作为肺泡再生候选药物、构建利用增强其对肺泡再生作用的生物学机制的DDS以及干粉吸入剂的剂型设计。
