|
Richard is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Houston. He received his Ph.D. in pharmacology and did his postdoctoral training at Baylor College of Medicine. His early work provided functional evidence for a β-adrenoceptor that was eventually found to be the β3-adrenoceptor. In collaboration with R. Lefkowitz and others, he undertook studies on the spontaneous activity of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and compounds functioning as inverse agonists. More recently, he became interested in the paradigm shift that has occurred with regard to the use of β-adrenoceptor agonists and antagonists/inverse agonists in the treatment of congestive heart failure.
Although beta blockers have long been contraindicated for asthma patients, Bond's theory of 'paradoxical pharmacology' suggests that the patients' initial negative reaction to certain drugs reverses over time and may in fact improve patient outcomes. A similar paradigm shift occurred in the 1990s when beta blockers went from being contraindicated - due to an initial negative effect - to FDA approved for the treatment of congestive heart failure. Richard's research has drawn heightened interest from the medical and scientific communities over the past two years. The work of Bond and his collaborators was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science and the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology. In 2009, Richard's patent for "Methods of Treating Airway Diseases with Beta-Adrenergic Inverse Agonists," was issued. Development rights for the patent were assigned to Inverseon.
Today, Richard continues to focus on examining the effects of inverse agonists and beta-blockers and if the unexpected reversal in heart failure is also applicable to chronic pulmonary diseases.
|
