Category: Centers
McLeod to Deliver ACCP Frontiers Lecture
September 22, 2008Howard McLeod, PharmD, will receive the Therapeutic Frontiers Lecture Award from the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. The award recognizes an individual who has made outstanding contributions to pharmacotherapeutics in his or her field, according to ACCP. McLeod is a Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor and the director of the UNC Institute of Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy. McLeod will deliver his lecture, titled “The Genome as a Tool for Clinical Pharmacy,” at the 2008 ACCP Annual Meeting at 10:30 a.m. on October 19. Among ACCP’s criteria for this award is the broad acknowledgment that the recipient is currently considered to be … Read more
Auman Named to UNC Institute
September 10, 2008Todd Auman, PhD, has joined the UNC Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy as a member of its research team. Auman, a research assistant professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, is an expert in using genomic technologies to understand a patient’s response to gastrointestinal cancer therapy. He holds a doctorate in pharmacology and toxicology from Duke University and conducted postdoctoral research at the National Center for Toxicogenomics, located at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. The UNC Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy, a research center within the Eshelman School of Pharmacy, is a unifying, programmatic structure … Read more
Long to Lead IPIT’s Pharmacoinformatics Facility
August 27, 2008The UNC Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy has named Kevin Long as the director of its pharmacoinformatics facility. The new pharmacoinformatics facility, which is based in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, has been created to develop resources for assessing drug-gene relationships, performing computational pharmacology analysis and providing IT platforms for pharmacogenomics studies. As the director, Long will provide overall strategic leadership and management in planning and directing applications development and also design and implement physical databases. Long received his bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering technology at the DeVry Institute of Technology and has more than 15 years of … Read more
McLeod to Deliver Abrams Lecture
March 20, 2008Howard McLeod, PharmD, a professor at the UNC School of Pharmacy and the director of the UNC Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy, has been selected to deliver the 2008 Dr. William B. Abrams Lecture, becoming the first PharmD scientist to receive that honor in the ten-year history of the lecture series. The lecture, cosponsored by the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and the Food and Drug Administration/Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, will be held at the FDA’s White Oak Campus in Silver Spring, Maryland, on Wednesday, April 30, from 1:30-2:30 p.m. McLeod’s lecture is titled “Personalized … Read more
Hoskins to Direct UNC Genomics Facility
January 15, 2008The UNC Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy, a research center within the UNC School of Pharmacy, recently named Janelle M. Hoskins as the director of its new Molecular Genomics Facility. This facility provides project design, data analysis, technology selection, and genotyping for IPIT investigators. A native of Australia, Hoskins received her PhD in pharmacology at the University of Sydney and postdoctoral training at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and at UNC-Chapel Hill. Hoskins is an expert in the pharmacogenetics of metabolizing enzymes and drug transporters with more than twenty scientific papers published in international peer-reviewed journals … Read more
Former GSK Exec to Lead UNC Drug Discovery Center
October 12, 2007Stephen Frye, PhD, former worldwide head of discovery, medicinal chemistry at GlaxoSmithKline, will lead the new Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “The days when large pharmaceutical companies could be solely relied on to effectively translate basic research into new medicines are passing,” Frye said. “Academic science will have to rise to the challenge.” Frye is co-inventor of GSK’s Avodart, a drug used to shrink an enlarged prostate gland that is also under study for prevention of prostate cancer. Prior to his most recent role at GSK, his department … Read more
IPIT Study Questions FDA Genetic-Screening Guidelines for Cancer Drug
August 27, 2007Not everyone needs a genetic test before taking the cancer drug irinotecan, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should modify its prescription guidelines to say so, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Irinotecan, also known by its brand name Camptosar, is used mainly as a second-line treatment for colorectal cancer. The FDA recommends screening patients for a gene that could make them more susceptible to the harmful side effects of the drug, the most worrisome of which is neutropenia, an abnormally low number of white blood cells. In a paper published in the … Read more
Nanomedicine Expert Russell Mumper Joins School Faculty
July 12, 2007Russell Mumper, PhD, an internationally recognized leader in the pharmaceutical applications of nanotechnology, has joined the UNC School of Pharmacy as the John A. McNeill Distinguished Professor. Mumper, an expert in vaccine and cancer drug delivery systems, will serve as the director of the School’s new Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery. The CNDD is part of a larger nanomedicine initiative at UNC that bridges disciplines in medicine, chemistry, and pharmacy. The center’s central mission is to quickly and safely translate new nanotechnologies into human clinical trials to improve the quality of life. The CNDD will bring together scientists to … Read more
FDA, Genetic Alliance Leaders Receive UNC Individualized Therapy Awards
May 21, 2007The Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill presented its 2007 awards at the Second Annual Chapel Hill Drug Conference on May 19. Janet Woodcock, MD, chief medical officer of the Food and Drug Administration, was named the recipient of the IPIT Award for Clinical Service. This award honors a person who has made significant direct contributions to the advancement of individualized therapy in clinical practice. Larry Lesko, PhD, director of the FDA Office of Clinical Pharmacology and Biopharmaceutics, received the IPIT Award for Public Service. This award is presented to honor … Read more
McLeod Forms New Individualized Therapy Institute at UNC
March 15, 2007New Pharmacy Professor Seeks to Match the Medicine to the Patient Howard McLeod, PharmD, wants to help physicians get it right the first time when they select a medicine to treat cancer and other illnesses. He is heading a new research institute at the UNC School of Pharmacy that will find ways to match medicines to the unique makeup of the people needing them. “In cancer and almost every other area of medicine, there are multiple drugs that work,” McLeod says. “But none of them work more than half the time. So when prescribers are faced with choosing what medicine … Read more