Category: Centers
Albert Bowers Promoted to Associate Professor
July 9, 2018Albert Bowers, Ph.D., a faculty member in the Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, has been promoted to the rank of associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Bowers is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and an affiliate member of the School’s Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery. Bowers’ research focuses on harnessing natural product biosynthesis to make next generation therapeutics. Researchers in the Bowers Lab, who go by the Twitter handle @BowersRangers, use insights and chemistries from natural product biosynthesis to facilitate the discovery and development of new natural product-like … Read more
CIPS Wins Awards for Web Design and Video Production
June 5, 2018Members from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Center for Innovation in Pharmacy Simulation won four Hermes awards and two Telly Awards for web design and videography. An interactive webpage designed by CIPS won four Hermes Creative Awards on May 18. The page, designed for the Community Pharmacy Foundation, outlines principles of team-based health care. Jason Whitley, M.S.; Joel Floyd, M.S.; and Catherine MacAllister, M.Ed. designed the webpage. It was based on research conducted by postdoctoral researcher Chelsea Renfro, Pharm.D. Whitley is the creative lead for instructional innovation in CIPS, Floyd is a multimedia producer and MacAllister is an instructional … Read more
Kabanov Elected 2018 Controlled Release Society Fellow
June 4, 2018Alexander “Sasha” Kabanov, Ph.D., Dr. Sci., has been selected for membership in the College of Fellows of the Controlled Release Society for his “outstanding contributions to the field of delivery science and technology.” Kabanov will be inducted into the college at the 45th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the Controlled Release Society July 22–24 in New York City. Kabanov is the Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics and the director of the School’s Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery. He is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Elevation from member … Read more
Researchers Discover Compound with Potential to Stop Cancer Metastasis
May 21, 2018A UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy scientist is a leader in a large research collaboration that has discovered a new compound that suppressed the spread of cancer — a process known as metastasis — in three different animal models of human cancer. When cancer metastasizes, it spreads from its starting point to a different part of the body. The new compound created by the research team and named metarrestin significantly inhibited metastasis in human breast cancer, human prostate cancer and human pancreatic cancer that had been grafted into mice. Mice treated with the compound had fewer metastatic tumors in the … Read more
Kabanov Receives TBJ Life Sciences Award
May 10, 2018Alexander “Sasha” Kabanov, Ph.D., Dr. Sci., is a recipient of a 2018 Life Sciences Award from the Triangle Business Journal. Kabanov was nominated in the category of Outstanding Individual Research from Universities or Research Institutes. The award was presented at a ceremony held May 10 at the Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary. Kabanov is the Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics and the director of the School’s Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery. He is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. In 2017 a team led by Alexander Kabanov, … Read more
SGC@UNC Researchers Adopt ‘Extreme’ Open Science, Share Data as It Happens
April 26, 2018Researchers in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy are taking part in an experiment in experimentation by making their research publicly available as it happens. Postdoctoral research associates Alfredo Picado, Ph.D., and Carla Alamillo Ferrer, Ph.D., are participants in the Structural Genomics Consortium’s Extreme Open Science Initiative, which encourages SGC scientists in labs around the world to publish their notes online. The UNC-Chapel Hill hub of the SGC, run by Tim Willson, Ph.D., conducts open research into new protein kinase inhibitors with the aim of expanding drug discovery and creation. The norm in science is to guard data until publication. … Read more
Third Carolina Nanoformulation Workshop Shares Discoveries in Nanomedicine
April 25, 2018From March 12 to 16, scientists from industry and academia came together at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy to learn about the latest advances in nanomedicine and to get hands-on experience with advanced nanoformulations at the third annual Carolina Nanoformulation Workshop. The workshop is a unique blend of classroom and hands-on training that stresses interaction and participation. The 2018 edition featured three days of seminars presented by 21 speakers followed by two days of practical experience in the laboratories of the School’s Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery. Twenty-seven participants have attended the workshop, with each experiencing a unique … Read more
Batrakova Gets $1.7 Million Grant to Treat Parkinson’s with Cell-Delivered Gene Therapy
April 16, 2018Elena Batrakova, Ph.D., is principal investigator on a new R01 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to explore cell-based gene delivery to the brain as a therapy for Parkinson’s disease. The grant is worth up to $1.7 million over five years. Batrakova and her team at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery will genetically modify white blood cells called monocytes to produce glial cell–derived neurotrophic factor, or GDNF, and deliver it to the brain. Glial cells provide support and protection for nerve cells throughout the brain and body, and GDNF … Read more
Olivia Dong Receives Brewington Award
February 28, 2018Olivia Dong, a doctoral student in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, is the recipient of the School’s Kathryne A. Brewington Graduate Student Research Award for 2017. The School presents the award annually to the most outstanding doctoral student in pharmaceutical sciences in honor of Brewington’s commitment to public service and higher education. Under the guidance of her research adviser, Tim Wiltshire, Ph.D., Dong has been instrumental in the development of a new pharmacogenetic test, DNA2RxTM. She is investigating the health benefits of implementing this test for patients with coronary artery disease. … Read more
Time to Get Serious about Nanomaterials Databases, UNC Scientists Say
January 30, 2018Nanomaterials researchers urgently need well-structured and publicly accessible databases to advance their field, according to scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Research Triangle Institute. RTI transferred the Nanomaterial Registry database to UNC-Chapel Hill, and the University is offering it as a repository for the field’s collective knowledge. The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy administers the registry database. Scientists at the School and at RTI published a commentary in Nature Nanotechnology calling for concerted efforts among database stewards, researchers, funding agencies and publishers to encourage meaningful growth of existing nanomaterials databases. “The field of nanotechnology … Read more