January 2008

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Faculty     Staff     Students     The Building and Grounds

Now that you’ve all had a few weeks to settle in, I’d like to welcome everyone back from the holiday break, wish you a happy new year, and thank you all for a very successful 2007. I’m confident that 2008 will be even better.

I’ve started this newsletter to keep all of you—our faculty, our staff, and our students—better informed about what is happening at the School. It will come out monthly in print, via e-mail, and on the Web. If you have items you want to bring to my attention for inclusion in this communiqué, please e-mail your suggestions to Ms. Becky Eatmon.

I want to start by letting everyone know that I have accepted a second five-year appointment as dean. Also, the minutes of the School’s Executive Committee are now available at http://www.pharmacy.unc.edu/about-us/minutes.

I hope you’ve all heard about the $9 million gift given by Fred Eshelman to support our newly established research centers. This was matched by the University Cancer Research Fund for a total of $18 million. What you may not know is that Dr. Eshelman also pledged $1 million to support the Educational Renaissance initiative of the School’s strategic plan. This amount has been matched by the Pharmacy Network Foundation. We are working to develop a plan for these funds.

Faculty

Congratulations to Herb Patterson and Betsy Sleath on their promotions to full professor. Betsy was also elected chair of AACP’s Social and Administrative Sciences Section.

A number of new faculty members have joined the School since July.

	Lynn Dressler, assistant professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy and associate director for policy and ethics in the Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy. She comes to us from the UNC School of Medicine, where she was a research associate professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Oncology, in the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
	Stephen Frye is the former worldwide head of discovery medicinal chemistry at GlaxoSmithKline and co-inventor of the drug Avodart. He will lead the new Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery.
	David Lawrence is a Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor and a leading expert in the field of chemical biology. He comes to us from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York, where he spent eleven years as a professor of biochemistry.
	Russ Mumper is the John A. McNeill Distinguished Professor and an internationally recognized leader in the pharmaceutical applications of nanotechnology. Before coming to UNC, Mumper had been a faculty member at the University of Kentucky School of Pharmacy since 1999. He will head the Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery.
	Tim Wiltshire is an associate professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and a member of the Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy. Previously he was a senior research investigator in genetics for the Novartis Research Foundation’s Genomics Institute.

The ACPE accreditation team’s recent visit to ECSU went very well, and I would like to recognize and thank Huyla Coker and the faculty and students for the superb job they did in preparing for the review. We expect ACPE’s report in early February.

Staff

As dean, I want to stay aware of the concerns and interest of the School’s staff. I will be meeting monthly with the Staff Council—which is currently composed of Angela Lyght, David Etchison, Barbara Jones, Shelby Lunsford, and Joyce Neal—to discuss issues of interest to the staff.

The holiday decorations looked wonderful this year, and we have Amber Allen, Elaine Kimple, Shelby Lunsford, Angela Lyght, Wendy Mann, Gail Moriarity, and Phyllis Smith to thank for it. Angela and the Staff Council also did a superb job of organizing the holiday luncheon at the Carolina Inn.

Students

I meet quarterly with student leaders at my home to discuss student issues and opportunities. Please keep your student representatives aware of anything that might be on your mind.

We’ve made a couple of changes to our Breeze and video teleconferencing policy. First, when in class, you will not appear on the local front screens in Kerr 1001 and 2001 or at ECSU when you press the microphone button.

The Breeze policy has also been changed to allow students who miss lectures while attending state and national pharmacy meetings (e.g. APhA, ASHP, NCAP, SNPhA, and ACCP) to access the Breeze links to those lectures. In addition, if a student expects to be absent for an extended period due to illness or family emergency (death in the family, illness, etc.), he or she may be given access to the Breeze links. Access is given at the discretion of the director of student services.

I want to make note of significant awards won by our graduate students so far this year.

• Laura Bonifacio, a second-year doctoral student, received an AFPE Pre-Doctoral Fellowship in the Pharmaceutical Sciences from the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education.
• Rob Garmise won the 2007 AAPS Outstanding Graduate Research Award in Pharmaceutical Technologies.
• Raed Khashan, a doctoral student, won a Chemical Computing Group Excellence Award from the American Chemical Society’s Division of Computers in Chemistry.
• Dongmei Lu received the AAPS Ligand Binding Award.
• Shyh-dar Li is the recipient of the AAPS Lipid-based Drug Delivery Award.
• Pierre Morieux was awarded an NIH Predoctoral Fellowship from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
• Xin Ming, Jeannie Padowski, and Brandon Swift were named 2006–2008 Eli Lilly and Co.-UNC Predoctoral Fellows in Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics, and Drug Disposition.

In addition, Heidi Mansour, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics, received the PhRMA Career Award, the AAPS Postdoctoral Fellow Award, and 2007 UNC Postdoctoral Scholars Award for Research Excellence.

Don’t forget about the live Senate Auction being held at 11 a.m. January 31. PY1 and PY2 classes are suspended so students can attend.

Also, the Pharmacy Semiformal will be held February 23 at Spice Street. Maureen and I had a great time at this event last year, and I hope I’ll see you there this year. All faculty, staff, and students are invited. Tickets ($10 for singles, $15 for couples) can be purchased outside Beard 106, and a member of the Student Senate Social Committee should be going by offices on February 1. Students at ECSU should see Susan Tucker for tickets.

The Building and Grounds

The work recently completed on South Columbia Street was not part of any University project. The Orange Water and Sewer Authority was working on the sewers. The next change in store is that the street’s four lanes will be changed to two lanes for through traffic, one lane for buses, and one lane for bicycles.

The University will soon begin implementing its plan to change the sidewalks along South Columbia Street. The sidewalk will be moved back toward the School, creating a buffer zone between the road and the sidewalk similar to the arrangement on Cameron Avenue. This is to increase pedestrian safety by separating those on foot from traffic on the street and to discourage jaywalking. A new crosswalk with a traffic light will be added directly across from Beard Hall at Medical Drive, making it much easier and safer to cross Columbia.

Once the work along Manning Drive is completed (by August, we hope), we will begin a landscaping project for Beard Hall. We will also be replacing all the windows in Beard Hall and renovating the second- and third-floor restrooms in what will be the culmination of Beard’s renovation. The plan is to have the work on Beard completed before the beginning of the next academic year.

Below: An artist's rendering of the renovation planned along South Columbia Street. The light green areas represent a buffer zone to be added between the sidewalks and the road, protecting pedestrians and drivers. Click here for a larger image.