Chapter 1:Emerging Transporter Science and Challenges for the Future

Given the importance of membrane transporters in drug pharmacokinetics, evaluating their potential interactions has become common practice for new chemical entities in the pharmaceutical industry. However, our knowledge base in this area is still incomplete, both in terms of which transporters are, or may be, of clinical relevance and in the methods used to investigate and quantitate transporter mediated interactions. This chapter aims to give a broad overview of some of these areas, with emphasis being placed on those transporters or technologies where there is sufficient information available to warrant further investigations. Topics range from transporters that may soon be incorporated into regulatory guidelines because of their potential clinical impact, through to tissues and organs that are not routinely studied during drug development but may nonetheless still be important for specific patient populations or drug classes. New technological advances that incorporate cells into more complex, three-dimensional (3D) structures more typical of the in vivo situation are also explored, including microfluidics, microplatform models and the potential application of 3D printing to create organ-like structures.