Letícia Salvador Vieira, PhD is the Drug Metabolism and Disposition Highlighted Trainee Author for the April 2024 issue. Vieira is a research scientist, recently graduated with a PhD in Pharmaceutics from the University of Washington.

The DMD article that earned her the selection as a Highlighted Trainee Author is titled “Interaction and Transport of Benzalkonium Chlorides by the Organic Cation and Multidrug and Toxin Extrusion Transporters” and is available at https://doi.org/10.1124/dmd.123.001625.

Vieira’s goal is that her research advances our understanding of the involvement of the polyspecific organic cation transporters (pOCTs) in the tissue-specific disposition of drugs and environmental xenobiotics, as well as in renal drug-drug interactions.

Vieira’s research article focuses on the interactions of a class of environmental substances (i.e.: benzalkonium chlorides, BAC), with the pOCTs. The findings provide new insights on the molecular mechanisms driving the tissue-specific disposition of BAC in humans, which have direct implications for predicting tissue exposure and organ susceptibility to BACs and related toxic effects resulting from chronic environmental exposure.