Category: Faculty
Frye Promoted to Full Professor with Tenure
November 23, 2011The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees has approved the promotion of Stephen Frye, PhD, to the rank of full professor with tenure in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Frye is the director of the School’s Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, a research group bringing dedicated medicinal chemistry expertise to bear on biological targets of therapeutic relevance under investigation by UNC faculty. CIBDD project teams work with other groups on campus to move potential drug targets through the drug discovery and development process. “This promotion is due recognition of the impressive contribution … Read more
Pharmacy Department Wins ASHP Best Practices Award
November 16, 2011The Department of Pharmacy at UNC Hospitals has been recognized by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists with a National Best Practices Award. The award is given annually to pharmacy practitioners who demonstrate leadership in enhancing patient care and other areas of pharmacy practice and who have successfully created and carried out those innovative approaches to improve the delivery of patient care within their health systems. The award-winning project from UNC Hospitals was titled, “Development, Implementation, and Impact of a Comprehensive, Patient-Centered, Medical-Service-Based Pharmacy Practice Model.” “We are truly proud of the significant effort by our entire department of pharmacy … Read more
Wayne State’s Denise Rhoney to Chair Pharmacy Practice Division
November 7, 2011The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy announces that Denise Rhoney, PharmD, an associate professor of pharmacy practice and an award-winning instructor at the Wayne State University Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Michigan, will be the new chair of the Division of Pharmacy Practice and Experiential Education. “I am extremely pleased to welcome Denise Rhoney back home to North Carolina,” says Robert Blouin, dean of the School and the Vaugh and Nancy Bryson Distinguished Professor. “Her accomplishments so far in her career and her dedication to the profession of pharmacy and to its students bode well for her … Read more
UNC Scientists Find a Shortcut to Synthetic Heparin
October 27, 2011Creating a safer synthetic version of the anticoagulant heparin can be done in as few as ten steps thanks to a breakthrough made by scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that promises a purer, less expensive drug with fewer side effects. In a paper published in the November issue of the journal Science, a team led by Jian Liu, PhD, of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and Robert J. Lindhardt, PhD, of RPI document a technique that combines enzymatic and chemical processes to synthesize a simplified version of heparin in significant … Read more
IPIT Study Links Chemotherapy Response to Heritable Factors
October 26, 2011A new study from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center evaluated twenty-nine commonly used cancer chemotherapy drugs in the laboratory and found that how patients’ genes influence their response to chemotherapy varies widely between different drugs and different classes of drugs. The study was published online in the October issue of the journal Pharmacogenomics. “We know that chemotherapy works to kill cancer cells, but the problem is that we don’t know exactly why it works better for some patients than for others,” said project researcher Kristy Richards, MD, PhD, … Read more
Discovery by Jin, Roth Could Lead to Better Schizophrenia Drugs
October 24, 2011Scientists led by researchers at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy have discovered three first-in-class chemical compounds that could lead to safer, more effective medications for schizophrenia and related disorders. Schizophrenia is typically treated with antipsychotic medications, but the medications do not adequately treat a high percentage of patients. The drugs don’t address the negative and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia, and all current antipsychotics can lead to serious side effects such as cardiovascular conditions and weight gain with chronic use. The new compounds, which UNC has patented, will help address these problems by enabling researchers to better study which key … Read more
UNC Gets $100,000 Grant to Commercialize Huang, Kohn Inventions
September 30, 2011The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received $100,000 from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center to advance the commercial development of technologies created by UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy scientists Leaf Huang, PhD, and Hal Kohn, PhD. Technology transfer officials at three University of North Carolina System campuses are dividing $250,000 to advance the commercial development of discoveries made at their universities. Technology Enhancement Grants of $50,000 each will support the advancement of five inventions with significant market potential. At UNC-Chapel Hill, Henry Nowack and Jackie Quay, PhD, both assistant directors of the Office of Technology Development, are recipients … Read more
Singleton Named Vice Chair of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products
August 17, 2011Scott Singleton, PhD, has been named vice chair of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. “Professor Singleton has extensive administrative experience, including running the School’s graduate program and initiating the biotechnology start-up company. He is also a winner of multiple instructor-of-the-year awards,” says David Lawrence, PhD, an Eshelman Distinguished Professor and chair of the division. “I feel fortunate that he has agreed to assume the position of vice chair. The Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products will gain from his experience as an administrator and his passion as an educator. … Read more
Hawke Named Assistant Dean and Director of Graduate Education
August 5, 2011Roy Hawke, PharmD, PhD, has been named as assistant dean and director of graduate education for the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a clinical assistant professor As director, Hawke will assume responsibility for managing, advancing, and assessing the School’s graduate program in pharmaceutical sciences. He will work with the faculty to continue to improve the quality of teaching and support for the program, and he will chair the graduate education committee. Hawke has served as director of graduate studies for the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and as … Read more
Pharmacy and Medicine Collaborate on $3 Million NIAID HIV Prevention Project
July 28, 2011Scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy have been awarded a $3 million federal grant to develop and test a new generation of treatments aimed at preventing sexual transmission of HIV to uninfected individuals. This remains the most common cause of HIV infection worldwide. The new NIAID award is entitled Next Generation Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP. “This project combines the strengths of four outstanding investigators with highly complementary skills, at UNC and our industrial partner, Merck,” said J. Victor Garcia-Martinez, PhD, the project’s principal investigator and professor of medicine, and a member of UNC’s Center … Read more