Lisa Rohan, PhD

Dr. Rohan obtained a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from West Virginia University and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. After completion of her Ph.D. work, Dr. Rohan completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences in the area of Mucosal Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh.

The basis of Dr. Rohan’s research lies in the area of drug delivery. Her lab has a major focus in the design of mucosal drug delivery systems including vaginal and cervical drug delivery as applied in the areas of infectious disease and gynecologic oncology. Particular interests are in studying the role of chemical, physical, and biological properties of mucosal tissues and fluids in pharmaceutical product development. The group has developed a number of biologically relevant dissolution methods which can assist in predicting product functionality in vivo. An additional focus of the lab lies in generating a better understanding of drug transport and metabolism in the female lower reproductive tract and other mucosal tissues.

The Rohan Pharmaceutics Laboratory is involved in a number of stages of product development including preclinical drug candidate evaluation, formulation development, preclinical formulation assessment, scale-up, and introduction to early clinical trials. The lab has developed a number of products which have been advanced through IND to Phase I clinical testing including several topical pre-exposure prophylactic products for use against Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV. The work by her research team has also generated optimized imaging techniques for sentinel node identification in cervical cancer as well as novel delivery systems for chemotherapeutic agents.