Category: Featured News
Residency program expands to Scotland Neck and Rocky Mount
September 27, 2023As part of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Postgraduate Year One (PGY1) Community-Based Pharmacy Residency Program expansion, pharmacies in Eastern North Carolina’s Scotland Neck and Rocky Mount are coming together to offer a unique residency experience. This expansion is focused on reaching Eastern North Carolina in rural and underserved areas. McDowell’s Pharmacy in Scotland Neck is a family-owned pharmacy with a rich history of serving the community since 1901. Thomas McDowell, Pharm.D. ‘16, is a fourth-generation pharmacist who owns McDowell’s and expanded his practice by purchasing Rocky Mount Medical Park Pharmacy in 2021. Located only 30 miles from each … Read more
Celebrating World Pharmacists Day 2023
September 25, 2023Written by Caroline Sasser, Pharm.D., PharmAlliance Program Coordinator Today we celebrate the 13th annual World Pharmacists Day – a day celebrating pharmacists around the world with the theme Pharmacy strengthening health systems. With this year’s theme in mind, the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy would like to recognize faculty and partners for their contributions to building a stronger health system for us all. Stephen Eckel, Pharm.D., M.H.A. and Kathryn Morbitzer, Pharm.D., M.S., from the Division of Practice Advancement and Clinical Education are training pharmacists and technicians to be health systems leaders through their online M.S. Program in Pharmacy Administration & … Read more
Improving pediatric brain cancer treatments
September 20, 2023Alexander “Sasha” Kabanov, Ph.D., Dr.Sci., is researching a new way to treat pediatric brain cancer. “If successful, our therapy will improve medulloblastoma treatment by replacing the current radiation and chemotherapy with one that is less toxic and more effective,” said Kabanov, Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. In July, the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, the largest charity funder of childhood cancer research grants, awarded $8.4 million to various researchers. Of those awarded, Kabanov was awarded $200,000 to further his research into medulloblastoma treatments. This grant … Read more
Residency program expands to New Bern
September 18, 2023As part of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Postgraduate Year One (PGY1) Community-Based Pharmacy Residency Program expansion, Realo Drugs in New Bern, North Carolina is excited to partner with Carolina as a residency site. This expansion is focused on reaching Eastern North Carolina in rural and underserved areas. Realo Drugs, a family-owned community pharmacy, has been serving this part of the state since 1982 with 18 locations across the region—four of them in New Bern, including their flagship store where the resident will train. Realo Drugs is proud to offer complete care, partnering with local providers to offer continuity … Read more
Utilizing AI and machine learning for drug discovery
September 14, 2023Alexander Tropsha, Ph.D., is exploring unchartered territory through research into ways artificial intelligence and machine learning can help advance the drug discovery process. Tropsha, a professor in the Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and director of the Laboratory for Molecular Modeling, is an expert in the fields of computational chemistry, cheminformatics and structural bioinformatics who works to develop new methodologies and software tools for computer-assisted drug design. His particular expertise lies in the field of cheminformatics, a discipline where information and informatics methodologies are applied to storing, managing, exploring and exploiting … Read more
Research to help eliminate barriers patients face when taking oral chemotherapy drugs
September 13, 2023Benyam Muluneh, Pharm.D. ‘10, assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy is starting a new project focused on optimizing the delivery of cancer care for North Carolinian patients taking orally administered chemotherapy drugs. With the support of a $1 million National Cancer Institute grant, Muluneh’s end goal for the project, which will be piloted in urban community and rural cancer centers, is to better understand the barriers patients face in being able to start and then stay on their oral anticancer drugs, which will lead to a patient-centered intervention that … Read more
Residency program expands to Wilmington
September 11, 2023As part of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Postgraduate Year One (PGY1) Community-Based Pharmacy Residency Program expansion, the Cape Fear Clinic (CFC) in Wilmington, North Carolina will soon be home for a new resident. This expansion is focused on reaching Eastern North Carolina in rural and underserved areas. Although Wilmington doesn’t come to mind when thinking of rural areas, CFC focuses on an underserved population of low-income, uninsured individuals and families, which accounts for 80% of their patients. CFC is a non-profit, charitable clinic with onsite medical, pharmacy and mental health services and is a certified Patient Centered Medical … Read more
Part of the Pharmily: Fatimah Hussein
September 6, 2023When Fatimah Hussein, Pharm.D. candidate Class of 2027, arrived for orientation on August 1, it was her first time seeing the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Hussein comes from a Palestinian family and spent parts of her childhood in both Palestine and St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. “North Carolina seems so big compared to St. Thomas—it’s like a small town where everyone knows everyone,” she said. She received her associate degree in physics and bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of the Virgin Islands, but at the time, pharmacy wasn’t the goal. Hussein moved on to a graduate program … Read more
Part of the Pharmily: Emma Hacker
September 6, 2023Emma Hacker, Pharm.D. candidate class of 2027, knew she wanted to become a pharmacist in high school. As part of a school project, she created a five-year plan outlining college and career goals. “Through that process, I discovered UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and decided that would be my dream school,” Hacker said. “I kept that thought in the back of my mind and decided to see where college would take me.” She went to a small rural high school and had the opportunity to do a work study with the local pharmacy during her senior year. She spent half … Read more
Part of the Pharmily: Momodou Sankareh
August 28, 2023As a child, Momodou Sankareh, Pharm.D. candidate class of 2027, remembers going to the pharmacy with his mom when he was sick and being intrigued by what was going on behind the counter. It was the mystery of the pharmacy that captured his interest from a young age. In addition, his dad worked in wheelchair transportation—exposing Sankareh to different aspects of the health care system. “I always knew I wanted to do something in health care,” he said. His eyes were set on the sciences, but it was his unique experience as a volunteer firefighter throughout high school and college … Read more