Category: Research
RASP poster presentations capture student research
April 18, 2024Third year Pharm.D. students in the Research and Scholarship in Pharmacy (RASP) pathway presented their research findings to peers, faculty and staff members of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy on April 17. “The RASP poster session remains a highlight of our academic calendar, showcasing the remarkable achievements of our students within the RASP pathway,” said Kathryn Morbitzer, Pharm.D., RASP program director and associate professor in the Division of Practice Advancement and Clinical Education. “This celebratory event not only highlights the culmination of over a year of dedicated research and innovation, but also marks a pivotal moment for our students … Read more
Developing new ways to treat heart attacks without surgery
April 15, 2024According to Professor Juliane Nguyen, Ph.D., although cardiovascular disease is still the number one cause of death world-wide, the way heart attacks are treated hasn’t changed much in the last 20 years. With a $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Project Grant Program (R01), her lab will take the next steps toward developing a new therapy that could impact the way all heart attack patients are treated. “Effective delivery of therapeutics to the heart is quite challenging. When we inject therapeutics, they typically disperse throughout the entire body. However, the heart is small and receives … Read more
Kim Brouwer receives 2024 ASCPT Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award
April 3, 2024The American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) selected UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Associate Dean Kim Brouwer, Pharm.D., Ph.D., as the recipient of the 2024 Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award. “It is a tremendous honor to receive this prestigious award, and I am truly grateful to all the students, postdoctoral scholars and our collaborators who have worked tirelessly to translate our scientific discoveries to advance drug development and improve patient care,” said Brouwer, the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. “The wonderful environment that Carolina and the School have provided … Read more
Professor works to build HIV pharmacology data sharing service
March 25, 2024Assistant Professor Mackenzie Cottrell, Pharm.D., M.S, co-director of the UNC Center for AIDS Research Clinical Pharmacology and Analytical Chemistry Core, was awarded $2.5 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The five-year grant will fund the creation of a searchable data portal called the HIV Pharmacology Data Repository. “Our charge, as part of this core facility, is to help investigators at Carolina and other institutions who are working in the HIV space with any clinical pharmacology needs, so we run a lot of samples to measure drug concentrations,” … Read more
Ph.D. candidate helping address mental health crisis through research
March 18, 2024Phil Hughes, Ph.D. candidate in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, is conducting research that is actively used in policy discussions. Hughes’ research was sparked by the growing mental health crisis in the U.S. and the need for additional mental health prescribers. In the early 90s, the Department of Defense began allowing psychologists with specialized training to prescribe medications. In the years since, six states passed laws to allow psychologists to become licensed prescribers in their states and more states considering the similar laws. Hughes noticed that there was little research done … Read more
World-traveling duo finds teamwork is the secret to success
March 6, 2024Yutian Ma, Ph.D. and current postdoctoral researcher, has studied around the world, but found his home in Assistant Professor Owen Fenton’s lab. Ma has studied biomedical engineering in China, Australia, England and Singapore. “Working with different people across different cultures helped me realize that science is like a unifying language. It also exposed me to a lot of new insights and ideas,” said Ma. Fenton and Ma first worked together at the National University of Singapore in 2021. At the time, Fenton was looking for an excellent postdoc and reached out to his network who recommended Ma. After their initial … Read more
Professor advancing first inhaled antibody treatment for RSV
February 26, 2024Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes lower respiratory tract infection in millions each year and is the leading cause of hospitalization in young children. It is also responsible for over a hundred thousand hospitalizations each year among the immunocompromised and the elderly. Sam Lai, Ph.D., professor in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and his lab, have created an inhaled “muco-trapping” monoclonal antibody that effectively treats RSV infections, called Mota-MT. “Building off of our experience with COVID and the challenge that comes with vaccine hesitancy, our team was motivated to explore an … Read more
Using AI to build a smart sensing device
February 22, 2024Alexander Tropsha, Ph.D., is using machine learning and artificial intelligence to help his collaborators at Harvard build a portable chemical gas sensing device called iNOSES that will help identify volatiles in the air. Tropsha, K.H. Lee Distinguished Professor in the Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and collaborators at Harvard University, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant as part of the Convergence Accelerator program. The program is investing nearly $10 million across several projects to develop transformative bio-inspired solutions, like iNOSES. “The proposed bioinspired device employs a ‘sniffing’ sequence of … Read more
History of pharmacy school desegregation
February 19, 2024In honor of Black History Month, the stories of the first three African American students at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy have been documented in a paper published in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. The paper, entitled “From Desegregation and Integration to Diversity and Inclusion: The Environment Was Just Ice”, was led by alumna Christian Brown, Pharm.D. ‘23, alongside Carla Y. White, BS Pharm, associate professor and Associate Dean of Organizational Diversity and Inclusion, Benjamin Urick, Pharm.D., Ph.D., adjunct professor, senior principal health outcomes researcher at Prime Therapeutics and Gregory Bond, Ph.D., sports archivist and curator at the … Read more
Associate Professor awarded $2 million to study the effect of antibody-based therapies
February 7, 2024Associate Professor Carter Cao, Ph.D., in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics, is harnessing the power of quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) and cutting-edge computational modeling and simulation tools to understand how antibody-based treatments interact among diverse biological contexts. Cao’s research looks at the dynamics and mechanisms of the immune system in response to the constantly evolving diseases in our world. Using QSP, computational modeling and simulation tools will provide multi-dimensional data that navigates the body’s dynamic physiology. It will study how each immune system, diseases and antibodies interact with each other, with the hope … Read more