Category: Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry
Gates Foundation Provides Seed Money for UNC Researchers’ Germ of an Idea
May 5, 2010Researchers at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy have received a Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for an idea that could see a tiny seed, a bit of saliva and a few tweaks to a hormone create a simple test for diagnosing diseases of the developing world, such as malaria, tuberculosis and African sleeping sickness. David Lawrence, PhD, and Vyas Sharma, PhD, of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy received one of seventy-eight grants recently announced by the foundation in the fourth funding round of Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative to help scientists around … Read more
2010 Awards Banquet
May 1, 2010The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy held its 2010 Awards Banquet on April 30 at the Carolina Club in Alumni Hall. Here is the list of award recipients. Student Academic Awards Student Activities Awards Teaching Awards Special Recognition Phi Lambda Sigma Pharmacy Leadership Society Rho Chi National Honor Society STUDENT ACADEMIC AWARDS TEVA Outstanding Student Award Brian Murray This award, sponsored by TEVA Pharmaceuticals, is given to the graduating student who has excelled in the study of pharmacy. Facts and Comparisons Award for Excellence in Clinical Communications Jamie Lin Jurkiewicz This award, sponsored by Facts and Comparisons, is given in … Read more
Kohn to Receive AACP Dawson Biotech Award
April 21, 2010The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy will recognize professor Harold L. Kohn, PhD, for his contributions to contemporary teaching and scholarship in biotechnology with the prestigious Paul R. Dawson Biotechnology Award. “It gives AACP great pleasure to recognize Dr. Kohn with this illustrious award,” explained Lucinda L. Maine, PhD, AACP executive vice president and CEO. “He is a pioneer of biotechnology research and a leader in scholarly activities and teaching, especially as applied to students and faculty mentoring.” Kohn is the Kenan Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He is recognized … Read more
Postdoctoral fellow Richards Receives Kirschstein Award
April 6, 2010Justin Richards, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, has received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health to support his project to better understand how the bacterial protein RecA contributes to the development and transmission of antibiotic resistance. The grant is worth up to more than $143,000 over three years. Richards, who is in associate professor Scott Singleton’s lab, will use the funding for research aimed at determining the role that RecA’s myriad of activities play in the different ways bacteria try to survive an attack … Read more
Singleton Start Up Inks Deal, Attracts Funding
March 11, 2010A new company founded on the research of associate professor Scott Singleton, PhD, hopes to restore or boost the effectiveness of antibiotics that have been steadily losing ground to increasingly resistant bacteria. Synereca Pharmaceuticals was created to address the growing problem of bacterial resistance to current antibiotics. The company aims to develop orally active drugs that support existing antibiotics by inhibiting the enzyme RecA, Singleton says. RecA is the focus of his work and is a key factor in bacterial DNA repair and in the development and transmission of antibiotic resistance. “It’s astounding the diversity of roles played by RecA,” … Read more
MCNP Graduate Student Receives TraCS Grant
March 2, 2010Jui-Hua Hsieh, a graduate student in the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, has received a $2,000 grant from the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute to fund her project, “Design of Novel Therapeutic Agents against Mer Kinase for Cancer Treatment.” Elevated expression and activity of the enzyme Mer kinase are associated with various types of cancers, and researchers have found very few small-molecules inhibitors against Mer kinase so far, Hsieh says. Hsieh’s project will try to identify novel, potent Mer kinase inhibitors. She will use computer programs to virtually screen large libraries of chemical structures and use … Read more
NIH Funds Grad Student’s Enzymatic Inhibitions
February 25, 2010Sherket Peterson, a graduate student in the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, has received an NIH award worth approximately $100,000 over three years to support her efforts to create an inhibitor for the enzyme heparanase. “In our lab, we study heparin and heparan sulfate, but my project is related to heparanase, which is an enzyme that acts on heparan sulfate,” Peterson says. “This enzyme has been linked to a wide array of cancers.” In cancer and certain other health conditions, heparanase often becomes too abundant or unregulated. In cancer, this enzymatic excess can promote metastasis (the spread of … Read more
Roth study points to new uses, unexpected side effects of already-existing drugs
November 4, 2009Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of California, San Francisco, have developed and experimentally tested a technique to predict new target diseases for existing drugs. The researchers developed a computational method that compares how similar the structures of all known drugs are to the naturally occurring binding partners — known as ligands — of disease targets within the cell. In a study published this week in Nature, the scientists showed that the method predicts potential new uses as well as unexpected side effects of approved drugs. “This approach uncovered interactions between drugs and … Read more
Lee Study: Pruning Protein Decreases Binding Affinity without Changing Structure
October 15, 2009A research team led by Andrew Lee, PhD, has demonstrated that a protein’s function can be changed without modifying its structure, creating a new comprehension of how proteins bind to each other and to drugs. “This is a fundamental change in the way we understand the simple act of binding, which is important not only for biology but for drug development.” says Lee, a professor in the School’s Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products. “This mechanism has never been seen before in single protein domains whose job it is to simply bind something. It is a nice, clear example … Read more
School Researchers Attract $2 Million in ARRA Stimulus Funding
October 6, 2009Faculty members at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy have been awarded grants totaling more than $2 million from the National Institutes of Health through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the economic stimulus bill or recovery act. At the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, we believe we have a special obligation to our fellow citizens to report on the projects funded with this money. This page will be updated as new projects are funded. Stephen Frye, PhD, “Discovery of Small Molecule MBT Domain Antagonists” Frye received a two-year $873,000 challenge grant to study proteins involved in … Read more