Laken Kruger is the Drug Metabolism and Disposition Highlighted Trainee Author for the August 2023 issue. Currently, Dr. Kruger is working as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. The highlighted manuscript listed below is from her dissertation work at Washington State University, College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences under the mentorship of Dr. Bhagwat Prasad. The DMD article that earned her selection as a Highlighted Trainee Author is titled “Characterization of Xenobiotic and Steroid Disposition Potential of Human Placental Tissue and Cell Lines (BeWo, JEG-3, JAR, and HTR-8/SVneo) by Quantitative Proteomics” and is available at https://doi.org/10.1124/dmd.123.001345.
Dr. Kruger’s research was focused on understanding the xenobiotic and steroid disposition pathways within the placenta, which play a vital role in pregnancy maintenance. She not only characterized these pathways in commonly used in vitro models of the placenta but also established a protocol to normalize proteomics data for technical variables such as the blood content and cellular composition of placenta tissue samples.
The anticipated impact of Dr. Kruger’s research is a more comprehensive understanding of the placental xenobiotic and steroid disposition pathways to aid in studying how drugs and environmental toxins affect fetal growth and development in a high throughput manner.
Outside of the lab, Laken enjoys painting, gardening, and adventuring.