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SALISBURY, MD--Dr. Diane Davis, associate professor of health sciences/medical technology and clinical coordinator in the Department of Health Sciences at Salisbury University, was recently awarded the national research award from the American Society of Clinical Laboratory Science for her work on immunosuppressive drugs.

Immunosuppressive drugs are used to prevent rejection in solid organ transplants and must be monitored carefully. Too little medication causes the transplanted organ to be rejected,  too much medication causes the immune system to be so suppressed that the patient could die from infection. 

Davis’ work, a study on the interference of metabolic products of the drugs on some of the drug assays used clinically, paves the way for better analysis and/or more accurate interpretations of those assays currently in use.

Recently Davis presented her findings to the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology.  Along with her dissertation supervisor, Dr. Steven Soldin, Davis described her findings on how immunosuppressive drugs used routinely bind to the protein ubiquitin and cause measurable alteration to an enzyme believed to be crucial to immune system activation. This effect has never been previously described and the hypothesized cellular effects of these drugs may have to be changed based on the new information.