Category: Featured
Early Assurance Program inspires students from small towns
July 8, 2024Both Trinity Clanton and Addison Clark are planning to utilize their future pharmacy degrees in rural and underserved areas. With the help of UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Early Assurance Program (EAP), they are on their way to making their dreams a reality. Clanton is a third year at UNC-Chapel Hill from Spring Hope, North Carolina and Clark is a fourth year at Appalachian State University from Smithfield, North Carolina. The School seeks to admit exceptionally talented and diverse students who will become the next generation of pharmacy leaders—just like Clanton and Clark. This led to the creation of the … Read more
Rural Health Scholars dream to make a difference
July 1, 2024LaShae Powell, Pharm.D. candidate class of 2027, is a native North Carolinian from Sampson County and understands firsthand how important rural health care is. “I’ve watched my family and neighbors struggle with chronic conditions and limited resources, making equitable health care an urgent necessity,” she said. Powell grew up in a small, rural community and experienced the challenges in accessing health care. Her community would have to travel long distances for even basic medical services, which often leads to delays in treatment and poorer health outcomes. With the need for pharmacists in rural areas increasing, the UNC Eshelman School of … Read more
Lisa Tarantino appointed as new Assistant Dean for Research
June 26, 2024The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy has appointed its new Assistant Dean for Research. Lisa Tarantino, Ph.D., will join the School and its research enterprise on July 1. Tarantino has her own lab in the UNC School of Medicine, Department of Genetics, but in her role as the faculty director of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program (BBSP), she discovered her interest in working on an administrative level. “For the last four years, I’ve been the faculty director for the medical school’s biomedical graduate program,” said Tarantino. “Through that role, I realized that I really enjoyed learning how the University functions … Read more
NIH award leads to deeper study of brain malformations
June 24, 2024How seizures, epilepsy and other brain malformations develop from genetic variants is not fully understood, but a new National Institutes of Health (NIH) award will pave the way toward understanding the cause and potentially lead to new therapies. New (non-inherited) genetic variants can arise as cells divide during embryonic development and give rise to mosaicism—sets of cells that are genetically different from one another. Such variants have been shown to cause seizures and brain malformations. The abnormal mosaic brain tissue can sometimes be surgically removed to treat the seizures caused by these genetic variants. This new NIH award of more … Read more
PharmAlliance brings global partners to Chapel Hill
June 20, 2024The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy hosted 35 international attendees from Monash University Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and University College London (UCL) School of Pharmacy for PharmAlliance Week 2024. PharmAlliance is a strategic, international partnership between three top-10 schools of pharmacy in the world. The partnership holds an annual conference to bring new ideas, space for discussion, and opportunity for collaboration to faculty, staff and students. This year’s theme spoke to the partnership’s synergetic nature — “Collaboration Crossroads: Sharing talent, tools and techniques.” The conference kicked-off on June 16 with a reception where Dean Angela Kashuba welcomed attendees … Read more
Carolina collaboration yields next-generation medical bandage
June 19, 2024Written by Carleigh Gabryel From chronic wounds to battlefield triage to heart surgery, this self-sticking bandage is designed to adapt to any body surface, internal or external, creating a bond stronger than current FDA-approved adhesives. The applications of this innovation are detailed in Nature Communications. “Our patch mimics the skin’s expandability and flexibility, stretching as a person moves,” says principal investigator Juliane Nguyen, professor in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. “Normal bandages contract in one direction as they expand in another. Ours are designed to expand in both directions, preventing tissue damage and promoting … Read more
From Poland to Carolina
June 17, 2024As a global leader in pharmacy, the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy offers a unique opportunity for students to become leaders in pharmacy education and practice on a global scale. While at the School, they can choose to be part of the Global Engagement Organization (GEO), which contributes to the personal and professional development of student pharmacists as globally minded health care professionals. GEO is an umbrella organization composed of three student organizations including PharmAlliance, the Global Ambassador Program and the International Pharmaceutical Students Federation (IPSF). IPSF offers an annual Student Exchange Program and welcomes one to two students from … Read more
New digital health concepts aim to prevent overdoses
June 12, 2024Written by Logan Ward Nick Wichert, engagement manager for High Alpha Innovation, launched his team’s innovation pitch with a heart-wrenching story. His best friend’s father suffered from a heroin addiction. He got into and stayed in recovery for decades, Wichert told a rapt audience. But the social safety net his friend’s father counted on to maintain his abstinence-focused recovery frayed, and he started using opioids again. His marriage fell apart. His daughter and son — Wichert’s childhood friend — stopped talking to him. One day, his landlord found him on the floor, dead of an overdose. “I don’t tell this story lightly,” … Read more
Monash Ph.D. student enhances Alzheimer’s research while at Carolina
June 10, 2024When he’s not cycling around Chapel Hill and exploring all that North Carolina has to offer, Ethan Kreutzer can be found studying at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy as part of his Globalization of Pharmaceutics Education Network (GPEN) travel fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship, also known as The Ronald T. and Pamela K. Borchardt Travel Fellowship, is to provide an international experience for graduate students where they can learn something new to enhance their research between GPEN institutions. “In addition to learning something new, I think the opportunity to travel to another country and another institution to see … Read more
Global Pharmacy Scholars program celebrates 10 years and adds new partnership with University of Toronto
June 5, 2024Since 2014, the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy has offered international Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience sites for Pharm.D. students through the Global Pharmacy Scholars (GPS) program. A total of 248 students have added this program to their resume, with another 42 scheduled to travel in the 2024-2025 academic year. This summer marks 10 years of the program and enabling students to learn about health care issues in various countries around the world, exposing students to different cultures and health care systems, extending scholarship opportunities available to students and faculty and developing the next generation of global leaders in pharmacy. “It … Read more