Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / The Marine Corps is fielding the MTVR Truck as a replacement for its aging fleet of five-ton cargo trucks. The MTVR is an Acquisition Category II program that was a multi-service Army-Marine Corps program. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the effectiveness of having an Army Product Office execute a Marine Corps Program. The study analyzes the effectiveness of the timing of the program's transition from the Army to the Marine Corps. A detailed literature search, as well as information gathered from attending various IPRs and conducting interviews with program officials and contractors, provided the basis for the in-depth background study presented. Analysis of the data gathered led to a justification for multi-service managed programs, as well as to recommendations on the timing of the MTVR program transition. / Civilian, United States Army

Atherosclerosis is a macrophage-dominated nonresolving inflammatory disease of the arterial wall. Macrophage processes, including apoptosis, influence lesion development in atherosclerosis. Cannabinoids, compounds structurally related to Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana, exert their effects through cannabinoid receptors, CB1 and CB2. Cannabinoid treatment, THC or Win55,212-2, reduces atherosclerosis in ApoE-null mice by a mechanism thought to involve CB2. However, the exact role of CB2 in atherosclerosis remains unclear. We found that CB2-null macrophages are resistant to oxysterol/oxLDL-induced apoptosis leading us to hypothesize that CB2 may modulate macrophage apoptosis in atherosclerosis. To determine the functions of CB2 in atherosclerosis, we fed low density lipoprotein receptor-null (Ldlr-/-) and Ldlr-/- mice genetically deficient in CB2, an atherogenic diet for 8 and 12 weeks. CB2 deficiency did not significantly affect aortic root lesion area after 8 or 12 weeks; however, after 12 weeks, CB2-deficient lesions displayed increased lesional macrophage and smooth muscle cell (SMC) content and a ~2-fold reduction in lesional apoptosis. CB2-deficienct lesions also displayed reduced collagen content and elevated elastin fiber fragmentation that was associated with elevated levels of the extracellular matrix degrading enzyme, matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9). These results demonstrate that although CB2 signaling does not affect atherosclerotic lesion size it does modulate lesional apoptosis, cellularity and ECM composition. Ldlr-/- and CB2-deficient Ldlr-/- mice were also subjected to daily treatments with Win55,212-2, a synthetic cannabinoid, over the last 2 weeks of an 8 week atherogenic diet to identify CB2-dependent and CB2-independent effects of cannabinoid receptor stimulation on atherosclerosis. Win55,212-2 did not affect hypercholesterolemia, aortic root lesion area, lesional macrophage infiltration, or ECM composition in either genotype but did significantly reduce total plasma triglyceride levels and lesional SMC content, independent of CB2. Surprisingly, lesional apoptosis was dose-dependently repressed by Win55,212-2 in Ldlr-/- mice by a CB2-dependent mechanism. All together, these results support the suggestion that CB2 may be a target for novel therapies aimed at modulating lesional apoptosis and cellularity to increase lesion stability and reduce the vulnerability to rupture.

One of the major challenges faced by the pharmaceutical industry is to accelerate the product innovation process and reduce the time-to-market for new drug developments. This involves billions of dollars of investment due to the large amount of experimentation and validation processes involved. A computational modeling approach, which could explore the design space rapidly, reduce uncertainty and make better, faster and safer decisions, fits into the overall goal and complements the product development process. Our research focuses on the early preclinical stage of the drug development process involving lead selection, optimization and candidate identification steps. Our work helps in screening the most favorable candidates based on the biopharmaceutical and pharmacokinetic properties. This helps in precipitating early development failures in the early drug discovery and candidate selection processes and reduces the rate of late-stage failures, which is more expensive. In our research, we successfully integrated two well-known models, namely the drug release model (dissolution model) with a drug transport model (compartmental absorption and transit (CAT) model) to predict the release, distribution, absorption and elimination of an oral drug through the gastrointestinal (GI) tract of the human body. In the CAT model, the GI tract is envisioned as a series of compartments, where each compartment is assumed to be a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). We coupled the drug release model in the form of partial differential equations (PDE's) with the CAT model in the form of ordinary differential equations (ODE's). The developed model can also be used to design the drug tablet for target pharmacokinetic characteristics. The advantage of the suggested approach is that it includes the mechanism of drug release and also the properties of the polymer carrier into the model. The model is flexible and can be adapted based on the requirements of the clients. Through this model, we were also able to avoid depending on commercially available software which are very expensive. In the drug discovery and development process, the tablet formulation (oral drug delivery) is an important step. The tablet consists of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), excipients and polymer. A controlled release of drug from this tablet usually involves swelling of the polymer, forming a gel layer and diffusion of drug through the gel layer into the body. The polymer is mainly responsible for controlling the release rate (of the drug from the tablet), which would lead to a desired therapeutic effect on the body. In our research, we also developed a molecular design strategy for generating molecular structures of polymer candidates with desired properties. Structure-property relationships and group contributions are used to estimate the polymer properties based on the polymer molecular structure, along with a computer aided technique to generate molecular structures of polymers having desired properties. In greater detail, we utilized group contribution models to estimate several desired polymer properties such as grass transition temperature (Tg), density (ρ) and linear expansion coefficient (α). We subsequently solved an optimization model, which generated molecular structures of polymers with desired property values. Some examples of new polymer repeat units are - [CONHCH₂ - CH₂NHCO]n -, - [CHOH - COO]n -. These repeat-units could potentially lead to novel polymers with interesting characteristics; a polymer chemist could further investigate these. We recognize the need to develop group contribution models for other polymer properties such as porosity of the polymer and diffusion coefficients of water and drug in the polymer, which are not currently available in literature. The geometric characteristics and the make-up of the drug tablet have a large impact on the drug release profile in the GI tract. We are exploring the concept of tablet customization, namely designing the dosage form of the tablet based on a desired release profile. We proposed tablet configurations which could lead to desired release profiles such as constant or zero-order release, Gaussian release and pulsatile release. We expect our work to aid in the product innovation process. / Ph. D.