Category: Research
Study: Pharmacists Trail Physicians, Internet in Credibility with Vasculitis Patients
December 4, 2012Patients taking vasculitis medication see physicians and the Internet as more credible sources for medication information than pharmacists, according to a study by researchers at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. The study, published online in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, reported the results of an online survey in which 58.6 percent of the 232 participants said they never talked to a pharmacist about their vasculitis medications. Participants also rated pharmacists as less credible than physicians and the Internet (see an infographic of the findings). “Based on prior research, we expected that participants would consult pharmacists less often … Read more
UNC Nanomedicine Researchers Uncover High Potential for Low-Frequency Magnetic Fields
November 16, 2012A team of researchers led by scientists at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy has discovered effects of low-frequency magnetic fields that might pave the way for new approaches to designing remote-control nanomedicines. In a paper published online October 18 in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the researchers describe an experiment in which they attached an enzyme to magnetic nanoparticles, exposed them to nonheating, low-frequency magnetic fields, and observed the resulting changes in the enzymes’ structure, conformation, and catalytic activity, which were different from changes induced by heating up the nanoparticles. The results demonstrated for the first time magneto-mechanical effects triggered … Read more
Pharmaceutical Startups Picked for Investors Showcase
November 1, 2012Qualiber Inc. and Capture Pharmaceuticals, two pharmaceutical startup companies founded by faculty members at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, have been invited to present in the University Startups Showcase. The event will connect the best university startup companies, as nominated by the country’s major research universities, to leading venture capitalists, angel investors, strategic investors, and SBIR program managers. Qualiber was founded in 2010 by Leaf Huang, PhD, a Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor in the School’s Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics. The company aims to develop a drug-delivery system based on one of Huang’s inventions—a nanoparticle that contains a drug stored … Read more
Genetically Engineered Model Best Predicts Carboplatin Response
September 21, 2012New cancer drugs must be thoroughly tested in preclinical models, often in mice, before they can be offered to cancer patients for the first time in phase I clinical trials. Key components of this process include pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies, which evaluate how the drug acts on a living organism. These studies measure the pharmacologic response and the duration and magnitude of response observed relative to the concentration of the drug at an active site in the organism. A new comparison by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill of four different methodologies for pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic … Read more
Roth, Jin Receive NIH Grant to Develop New Schizophrenia Drugs
September 17, 2012Two faculty members at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy are part of a multi-investigator team that has received a five-year, $7.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to create novel drugs for the treatment of schizophrenia and related disorders. Bryan Roth, PhD, MD, a Michael Hooker Distinguished Professor in the UNC School of Medicine and the pharmacy school, is one of the lead investigators on the grant. Jian Jin, PhD, an associate professor and the associate director of medicinal chemistry at the pharmacy school’s Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, is the principal investigator for … Read more
UNC Study: Caregiver Input Helps Asthmatic Kids Stick to Their Meds
September 3, 2012Asthmatic children do a better job of taking their meds if they and their parents are included in the decision-making when the doctor and child are discussing medications, according to a new study from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Work we’ve done previously showed that physicians rarely ask for input from the child or the parents when creating an asthma-treatment plan,” says Betsy Sleath, PhD, lead author on the study. “In our study, less than 10 percent of the health-care providers did. That’s a missed opportunity.” The National Asthma Education … Read more
Lawrence Lab Uses Light to Create Three-Button Remote for Bioreagents
August 17, 2012Researchers at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy have demonstrated a technique to selectively activate bioreagents such as inhibitors, enzymes, and sensors within a cell using three different wavelengths of light. The team’s findings are published in the June 27 issue of Angewandte Chemie. “Imagine that you have an inhibitor that is inert but can be made active by light,” says David Lawrence, PhD, senior author of the study. “It is slowly taken up by the cell and floats around everywhere. Light allows you to switch that inhibitor on instantaneously. And by focusing the light on one area of the … Read more
Tropsha Awarded NSF Grant to Design Tools to Analyze Protein-Protein Interactions
August 14, 2012Alex Tropsha, PhD, has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation worth almost $900,000 over three years to design novel approaches to analyzing protein-protein interactions. The interactions between proteins play a central role in all major signaling events that occur in living cells. However, many if not most pairs of interacting proteins remain unknown, and their discovery presents a key challenge for postgenomic biology, says Tropsha, the K.H. Lee Distinguished Professor in the School’s Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry. “We plan to create and deliver—ultimately in the form of user-friendly software—novel approaches to analyzing protein-protein interactions … Read more
Pioneering UNC Study Paves Way for New Strategy to Fight HIV
July 25, 2012A team of scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that includes Professor Angela Kashuba, PharmD, has published pioneering research showing that a drug used to treat certain types of lymphoma could dislodge hidden HIV virus in patients. The findings, published in the July 25 issue of the leading scientific journal Nature, provide proof of concept for a new approach in the effort to cure AIDS. Researchers believe that a major reason that HIV infection reemerges after patients stop taking their medication is the existence of persistent reservoirs of dormant virus in the immune system that are not attacked … Read more
UNC Study: Milk Thistle Extract Doesn’t Help Chronic Hepatitis C
July 17, 2012The botanical product silymarin, an extract of milk thistle commonly used by some patients with chronic liver disease, did not provide greater benefit than a placebo for patients with treatment-resistant chronic hepatitis C virus infection, according to a study by UNC scientists published in the July 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Chronic hepatitis C virus infection, or HCV, affects almost 3 percent of the global population and may lead to cirrhosis, liver failure, and liver cancer. A large proportion of patients do not respond to certain treatments for this infection, and many others cannot be treated … Read more