Category: Faculty
Farley Named APhA Fellow
January 2, 2014Joel Farley, PhD, an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, has been selected as a fellow of the American Pharmacists Association. To be selected, an APhA member must have at least ten years of exemplary professional experience and achievements in professional practice and must have rendered outstanding service to the profession through activities in APhA and other organizations. Farley has a long history of service to the APhA. He has been a postgraduate officer of the APhA Academy of Pharmaceutical Research and Science, served on the policy committee in the House of Delegates, and chaired a number … Read more
Kabanov Named a Member of Elite European Academy
November 25, 2013Alexander “Sasha” Kabanov, PhD, has been named a member of the Academia Europaea, joining a distinguished group whose members include fifty-two Nobel Laureates. Kabanov is the Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He also oversees the School’s Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery and codirects the Carolina Institute for Nanomedicine. Academia Europaea has about 3,000 members, which include leading experts from the physical sciences and technology, biological sciences and medicine, mathematics, the letters and humanities, social and cognitive sciences, economics, and law. New members are nominated by their peers and are evaluated based on … Read more
AAPS Honors Huang with Distinguished Pharmaceutical Scientist Award
November 18, 2013Leaf Huang, PhD, is the 2013 recipient of the Distinguished Pharmaceutical Scientist Award given by the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. Huang is a Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor in the School’s Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics and is a member of the Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He received the award from AAPS President Anthony J. DeStefano, PhD, during the opening session of the 2013 AAPS Annual Meeting and Exposition. “This award is the highest distinction awarded by the most prominent organization of pharmaceutical scientists in the world,” says Bob Blouin, PharmD, dean … Read more
Sam Lai Receives Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering
October 31, 2013Assistant Professor Sam Lai, PhD, is a recipient of a 2013 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, a five-year, $875,000 award that recognizes the nation’s most innovative young scientists. Lai is one of only sixteen recipients nationwide selected from a pool of 100 scientists who are nominated by fifty major research universities. His work combines biophysics and immunology to investigate how antibodies secreted into mucus may interact with mucus constituents to reinforce the body’s first line of defense against pathogens. Lai’s goal is to harness these insights to engineer next-generation antibodies and vaccines for improved protection and therapy at mucosal surfaces. … Read more
Liu Receives $1.2M FDA Grant to Modernize Heparin Quality Control
September 26, 2013Heparin is a widely used blood thinner given to patients to prevent blood clots. However, the drug is sometimes its own worst enemy, as some of its components can cause the very thing it is supposed to stop. Jian Liu, PhD, a professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, has received a grant to help the Food and Drug Administration sniff out those potentially dangerous components in heparin. Liu says the research could help improve the drug’s safety, which has been a hot-button issue since a contaminated supply of heparin caused more than eighty deaths and hundreds of adverse … Read more
Dupuis Promoted to Clinical Professor
August 26, 2013Bob Dupuis, PharmD, has been promoted to the rank of clinical professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. Dupuis has been a member of the School’s faculty for nearly thirty years, directs the DPET Clinical Fellows Program, and practices as a transplant pharmacist at UNC Hospitals. “Bob Dupuis an outstanding clinician, an award-winning educator, and a role model for students and faculty alike,” says Bob Blouin, PharmD, dean of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. “We are very fortunate to have had him as a part of the life of this school for three decades.” After earning his … Read more
Jin Receives NIH Grant to Develop Chemical Probes
July 10, 2013Two years ago, Jian Jin, PhD, and a team of researchers created chemical probes that specifically hone in on the enzymes G9a and GLP, two relatively new potential drug targets. Now, Jin has an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to take that research to the next level. Jin, an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, has received a three-year, $950,000 grant to develop in vivo chemical probes for targeting the two proteins, which affect a wide range of biological functions in humans. The research will build on Jin’s work in 2011, when he led … Read more
Joyner Promoted to Clinical Professor
July 7, 2013Pamela U. Joyner, EdD, MSPharm, has been promoted to the rank of clinical professor. Joyner is the School’s executive associate dean for professional education. Joyner was appointed the associate dean for professional education at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in 1998 and executive associate dean in 2010. She joined the School in 1996 as the director of external professional programs. As executive associate dean, her responsibilities encompass the Office of Professional Education — including student affairs, the curriculum, and the professional experience program — as well as new professional education initiatives. Joyner received both a BS in pharmacy and … Read more
School, UNC Hospitals Receive Grant to Study New Practice Model
June 26, 2013Researchers and practitioners at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and UNC Hospitals have received a Pharmacy Practice Model Initiative Demonstration Grant from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Foundation to investigate the what, why, and how of a new model of pharmacy practice. The one-year, $25,000 grant will support a qualitative study to examine variations of the layered learning practice model, or LLPM, at UNC Hospitals to help develop a consistent approach that will lay the groundwork for broad-scale implementation of the model, says Nicole Pinelli, PharmD, the principal investigator on the grant. “When the LLPM was rolled out … Read more
Professor Emeritus Boka Hadzija Dies, Taught at School for Forty Years
June 10, 2013Professor Emeritus Boka Hadzija, who retired from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in 2009 after forty years, died unexpectedly on Sunday, June 9. A memorial service will be held Saturday, June 22, at the Newman Catholic Student Center at 218 Pittsboro Street in Chapel Hill. “Of all her many accomplishment, what we remember most—and for what she would most want to be remembered—was her passion for teaching and for her students,” says Bob Blouin, dean of the School. “She was a woman known for her deep compassion, iron determination, expansive intellect, and engaging humor.” Hadzija earned her bachelor’s, master’s, … Read more