Browsing by Author "Yang, Sungyun"

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    In Silico Investigation of the Clinical Translatability of Competitive Clearance Glucose-Responsive Insulins
    (American Chemical Society, 2023-09-18) Yang, Jing Fan; Yang, Sungyun; Gong, Xun; Bakh, Naveed A.; Zhang, Ge; Wang, Allison B.; Cherrington, Alan D.; Weiss, Michael A.; Strano, Michael S.; Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Medicine
    The glucose-responsive insulin (GRI) MK-2640 from Merck was a pioneer in its class to enter the clinical stage, having demonstrated promising responsiveness in in vitro and preclinical studies via a novel competitive clearance mechanism (CCM). The smaller pharmacokinetic response in humans motivates the development of new predictive, computational tools that can improve the design of therapeutics such as GRIs. Herein, we develop and use a new computational model, IM3PACT, based on the intersection of human and animal model glucoregulatory systems, to investigate the clinical translatability of CCM GRIs based on existing preclinical and clinical data of MK-2640 and regular human insulin (RHI). Simulated multi-glycemic clamps not only validated the earlier hypothesis of insufficient glucose-responsive clearance capacity in humans but also uncovered an equally important mismatch between the in vivo competitiveness profile and the physiological glycemic range, which was not observed in animals. Removing the inter-species gap increases the glucose-dependent GRI clearance from 13.0% to beyond 20% for humans and up to 33.3% when both factors were corrected. The intrinsic clearance rate, potency, and distribution volume did not apparently compromise the translation. The analysis also confirms a responsive pharmacokinetics local to the liver. By scanning a large design space for CCM GRIs, we found that the mannose receptor physiology in humans remains limiting even for the most optimally designed candidate. Overall, we show that this computational approach is able to extract quantitative and mechanistic information of value from a posteriori analysis of preclinical and clinical data to assist future therapeutic discovery and development.
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    Rational Design and Efficacy of Glucose-Responsive Insulin Therapeutics and Insulin Delivery Systems by Computation using Connected Human and Rodent Models
    (Wiley, 2023) Yang, Sungyun; Yang, Jing Fan; Gong, Xun; Weiss, Michael A.; Strano, Michael S.; Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Medicine
    Glucose-responsive insulins (GRIs) use plasma glucose levels in a diabetic patient to activate a specifically designed insulin analogue to a more potent state in real time. Alternatively, some GRI concepts use glucose-mediated release or injection of insulin into the bloodstream. GRIs hold promise to exhibit much improved pharmacological control of the plasma glucose concentration, particularly for the problem of therapeutically induced hypoglycemia. Several innovative GRI schemes are introduced into the literature, but there remains a dearth of quantitative analysis to aid the development and optimization of these constructs into effective therapeutics. This work evaluates several classes of GRIs that are proposed using a pharmacokinetic model as previously described, PAMERAH, simulating the glucoregulatory system of humans and rodents. GRI concepts are grouped into three mechanistic classes: 1) intrinsic GRIs, 2) glucose-responsive particles, and 3) glucose-responsive devices. Each class is analyzed for optimal designs that maintain glucose levels within the euglycemic range. These derived GRI parameter spaces are then compared between rodents and humans, providing the differences in clinical translation success for each candidate. This work demonstrates a computational framework to evaluate the potential clinical translatability of existing glucose-responsive systems, providing a useful approach for future GRI development.