Category: Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics
Photos: Fourth Annual Chapel Hill Drug Conference
May 19, 2009The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy hosted the Fourth Annual Chapel Hill Drug Conference on May 13-14. The conference focused on identifying the opportunities and challenges in bringing cutting-edge nanotechnology from discovery through preclinical evaluation and into human clinical studies and onward. The event was coordinated by theCenter for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery, UNC’s Institute for Nanomedicine, and The Carolina Partnership, an $18 million fund created by the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and the University Cancer Research Fund to support the School’s research centers. PHOTOS FROM THE CONFERENCE https://www.flickr.com//photos/uncpharmacy/sets/72157623277309237/show/
Graduate Student Wang Wins Scientific Art Competition
January 22, 2009Sheena Wang, a graduate student at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, has won first place in the Scientific Art Competition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The contest, coordinated by the Chapel Hill Analytical and Nanofabrication Laboratory through the Institute of Advanced Materials at UNC-Chapel Hill, showcased scientific data that had artistic appeal. Submissions were evaluated for their title, description, artistic value, and scientific significance. Wang took the $150 first-place prize with her entry, “The Haunted House”, an electron microscope image of particles in a dry-powder formulation for a nasal vaccine. All entries are on display … Read more
UNC Announces Fourth Annual Chapel Hill Drug Conference
November 14, 2008Application of nanotechnology to cancer, siRNA delivery, infectious diseases and vaccines, imaging and diagnostics, as well as nanomaterials engineering and nanotoxicology will be the topics of this year’s Chapel Hill Drug Conference at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The conference, titled “The Use of Nanotechnology to Create Safe and Effective Therapeutic and Diagnostic Products,” will be hosted by the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and held in Kerr Hall on May 13 and 14. Nanotechnology is the control and manipulation of structures at the atomic and molecular level, generally those smaller than 100 nanometers in size. A … Read more
Xiao Leads New UNC Wellstone Center Project
October 8, 2008The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been awarded a five-year, $7 million grant to establish a muscular dystrophy research center named in honor of the late Sen. Paul D. Wellstone of Minnesota, who earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at UNC. The new Senator Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Center at UNC joins a list of six existing Wellstone Centers that have been established by the National Institutes of Health. Wellstone was an advocate for muscular dystrophy issues in Congress before he was killed in a plane crash in 2002. The center will pursue three … Read more
Cho Receives $1.5 Million Grant to Deliver a False Infection to Cancer Tumors
August 19, 2008Cancer cells are deadly traitors; good cells gone bad. They evade the body’s defense systems, passing themselves off as organisms that pose no threat. Moo J. Cho, PhD, an associate professor in the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics, is working on a way to blow their cover. Cho is creating a delivery system that would infect a cancer tumor with bacterial elements in order to encourage the body’s immune system to recognize and attack the tumor. “It’s like planting a big red flag on the tumor to attract the attention of the body’s immune system, which normally ignores cancerous cells,” Cho … Read more
Juliano to Oversee School’s Research and Graduate Education
April 25, 2008The UNC School of Pharmacy has named Rudy Juliano, PhD, an expert in drug targeting, as its new associate dean for research and graduate education. Juliano fills the vacancy left by Dhiren Thakker, PhD, who stepped down to pursue other projects at the School. Before coming to the School, Juliano was the Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the UNC School of Medicine, where he served as department chair from 1987 to 2002. In his new position, Juliano will oversee the School’s research and graduate education programs. One key component of his responsibilities will be … Read more
Huang Receives More than $3 Million in NIH Funding
April 17, 2008Leaf Huang, PhD, a Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor at the UNC School of Pharmacy, has received two grants from the National Institutes of Health, each worth more than $1.5 million over five years, to support cancer-therapy research. Huang, who chairs the School’s Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics, is an expert in designing new methods of drug delivery that could make gene therapy an effective weapon in the fight against cancer. One of his new grants will support the development of cancer therapy using LPD nanoparticles, a novel vector that Huang’s lab created. LPD nanoparticles are consisted of lipid, polycations (molecules with … Read more
UNC Proofs Inhaled TB Vaccine
March 22, 2008A new tuberculosis vaccine successfully tested at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is easier to administer and store and just as effective as one commonly used worldwide. Scientists at the UNC School of Pharmacy led by Tony Hickey, PhD, vetted a dry-powder vaccine provided by Harvard University that is administered by inhaling a dry powder. The results of the vaccine test were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “It is at least as good as the injectable vaccine,” said Hickey, a professor in the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics. “The real advantage is that … Read more
2008 Graduate Student Awards
January 27, 2008The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy held its Graduate Achievement Banquet on January 26. UNC-CH Graduate School Scholarships Two first-year doctoral students from the School were recipients of merit assistantships. The UNC Graduate School awards merit assistantships to promising incoming graduate students, with the objective of maintaining and increasing the quality of graduate students at UNC-Chapel Hill. The School’s recipients are: Beth Vasiveich, Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics Christina Won, Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics The UNC Graduate School also awards a few competitive merit fellowships each year to incoming graduate students with exceptional potential. The Royster Society of Fellows … Read more
UNC Spin-Off Company Receives $26.5M Commitment
November 16, 2007Oriel Therapeutics, an inhaled drug-delivery company cofounded by UNC School of Pharmacy professor Anthony Hickey, PhD, has received a $26.5 million commitment from a group of venture capital firms. The commitment comes from a group led by New Leaf Partners, a New York venture capital firm. The money will fund the company’s development of drugs that use its patented dry-powder inhaler technology, which was developed at the School. Based in Research Triangle Park, Oriel was founded in 2001 and holds four U.S. patents. It began as a company that develops inhalers for use with other companies’ medicine, but has since … Read more