{"id":23547,"date":"2020-01-24T12:32:36","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T20:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sop.washington.edu\/?p=23547"},"modified":"2026-02-17T15:22:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:22:05","slug":"xu-and-kelly-receive-sop-faculty-innovation-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staff.washington.edu\/twentzel\/wordpress\/xu-and-kelly-receive-sop-faculty-innovation-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Xu and Kelly receive SOP Faculty Innovation Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Libin Xu and Ed Kelly take a novel approach to investigate toxicity of common household cleaners<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Libin
Libin Xu <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Libin Xu and Ed Kelly were selected as this year\u2019s recipients of the UW School of Pharmacy Faculty Innovation Award for their proposal \u201cAssessing the Toxicogenetics of Benzalkonium Chlorides Using \u201cLiver-Kidney-on-Chips.\u201d<\/em> Libin and Ed, from UWSOP Departments of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutics, respectively, are Co-Principal Investigators.<\/p>\n

The UWSOP Faculty Innovation Award\u00a0provides financial support of up to $20,000 each for high-risk, innovative research projects. The reviewers look for projects with high scientific merit and great potential to generate extramural funding, with preference for projects that bring together faculty from two or more SOP departments.<\/p>\n

\"Associate
Ed Kelly <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Libin and Ed\u2019s project will continue Libin\u2019s research into the effects of benzalkonium chlorides (BACs) on human health. Benzalkonium chlorides are widely used as disinfectants in cleaning products, medical products, and food processing industries, but there is mounting evidence that points to them being toxic to developmental, reproductive, and neurological systems. Libin and Ed hypothesize that toxicities of BACs in liver and kidney are dependent on the activity of their metabolizing proteins.<\/p>\n

In this innovative study, the team will use an integrated liver-kidney-on-chips microphysiological system developed by the laboratory of Ed Kelly, who co-led (with Dr. Jonathan Himmelfarb, Director, Kidney Research Institute) the kidney-on-a-chip project that launched to the International Space Station in 2019. By bringing together liver and kidney cells into connected three-dimensional microphysiological systems, they expect to gain deeper insight into the metabolism, disposition, and toxicity of BACs from the liver to the kidney.<\/p>\n

Libin was part of the first UWSOP Faculty Innovation Fund Award team, with Brian Werth from the Department of Pharmacy. The UWSOP Faculty Innovation Award has led to several other ground-breaking projects that hold great promise for breakthroughs on some of the toughest challenges in population health:<\/p>\n