Mike Roberts has a particular interest in therapeutics and pharmaceutical sciences with current studies in critical care medicine, hepatology, quality use of medicines in the community, nanotoxicology, topical delivery, renal impairment after pesticide poisoning, nicotine addiction, pharmacokinetics, drug devlopment and cosmetology. He is probably best known internationally for his work on the absorption of chemicals, cosmetics and drugs through the skin. He has been a full professor for 25 years being initially Professor and Head of Pharmacy at the University of Otago, New Zealand and now as a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. He is jointly appointed as the Chair In Therapeutics and Pharmaceutical Science in the University of South Australia and as the Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Queensland. He is also visiting Professeur at the University of Lyon, France and is Director of the Therapeutics Research Centre ( 30 staff and students), based jointly at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide and at and Princess Alexandria Hospital in Brisbane. Mike also co-chairs The Therapeutics and Pharmaceutical Science Consortium in UniSA’s Sansom Institute and leads the inaugural SA government-UniSA pharmacy practitioner program.
His research journey began with an undergraduate project studying solute chemical structure-plastic container sorption relationships in the Reid Building, where his office is now located at UniSA. The resulting studies on drugs uptake by plastic containers and infusion systems are widely referred to in journal reviews, pharmacy references and text books and resulted in forms of their recommended polyolefin infusion systems being widely marketed.
His PhD was on structure penetration and toxicity relationships for phenolic compounds in human skin. This work is now included as core data in pharmaceutical and toxicological data bases (eg US Environmental Protection Agency). He has served/serves on reference committees for WHO, Europe, Health Canada and Australia and presented to regulatory forums in the US.
Mike’s RCTs in the community led, in part, to the Australian government national implementation of medication management for nursing homes and hostels (also now an accreditation requirement), and home medicine reviews by accredited pharmacists. Most recently, he has facilitated the use of imaging and microdialysis techniques to study pharmacokinetics in man in vitro and in vivo, including in critical care and cancer medicine.