Category: General
Grandy Receives Bernstein Fellowship for Hepatitis C Research
February 11, 2019Rebecca Grandy, Pharm.D., was named a Jim Bernstein Community Health Leadership Fellow for her work providing hepatitis C care in rural communities. Grandy is an assistant professor of clinical education at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Asheville satellite campus and practices at the Mountain Area Health Education Center’s Family Health Center. The Bernstein Fellows Program identifies and develops future healthcare in rural and underserved communities in North Carolina. The two-year program, awarded by the Foundation for Health Leadership and Innovation, supports the work of outstanding individuals working in rural communities through funding and mentorship opportunities. As a Bernstein Fellow, … Read more
Pharm.D. Students Compete in AMCP P&T Local Competition
February 6, 2019After months of preparation, three teams of Pharm.D. students faced off for the chance to compete for a third straight national championship. Three student teams, hoping to represent the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy Foundation’s Pharmacy and Therapeutics Competition, presented at the School’s P&T Local Competition on Jan 26. To determine which team will participate in the national AMCP competition, the teams presented clinical and economic recommendations for Radius Health’s TYMLOS® (abaloparatide), a promising but expensive new parathyroid hormone analogue for the treatment of severe osteoporosis in postemenopausal women. The winning team of … Read more
New Study Shows Cost Effectiveness of Early Screenings for High-Risk Cancer Patients
February 4, 2019New research from the University of Utah and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows how early cancer screening and surveillance in patients with Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS) results in additional years of life and is cost effective for third-party payers. LFS is an inherited genetic condition that greatly increases the risk of developing several types of cancer. People diagnosed with LFS have a one in two chance of developing cancer by 30, and a nearly 100 percent risk of developing cancer in their lifetime, compared to the lifetime cancer risk of the average person of almost 40 percent. The … Read more
Celebrate a Week of Wellness
February 3, 2019Celebrate a Week of Wellness This Month! Student Senate & the Asheville Executive Committee are excited to announce the inaugural UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy Week of Wellness! Our first ever Week of Wellness will take place Saturday, February 16th through Friday, February 22nd. All events are open to all students (PharmD, PhD & MS), faculty, staff, and preceptors! (Pharmal is a student only event). You can view the daily calendar of events here (click on each date to get daily activities) and download the calendar of events here. The week will focus on promoting wellness in students, faculty, and staff, and consist of collaborative programming and initiatives … Read more
Anthony Hickey Named Director of UNC Catalyst for Rare Diseases
January 29, 2019Anthony Hickey, Ph.D., has returned to the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy to head up the UNC Catalyst for Rare Diseases. Hickey, a professor in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics from 1993 until 2010, returns to the School after a stint at the Research Triangle Institute, where he was program director in inhaled therapeutics at the Center for Aerosol and Nanomaterials Engineering. Hickey earned his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences from Aston University in Birmingham, U.K. After five years on faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago, he came to the School in 1993. Hickey is the founder … Read more
Sjoquist Wins ACCP Education and Training Poster Competition
January 28, 2019Laura Sjoquist, Pharm.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, won first place in the 2018 American College of Clinical Pharmacy Education and Training PRN poster competition. Sjoquist is the experiential programs academic fellow in the Division of Practice Advancement and Clinical Education at the School. She received the award after presenting at the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Global Conference in Seattle in October. The research poster, entitled “An Exploration of Student Progression Toward Practice Readiness,” was co-authored by PACE faculty members Antonio Bush, Ph.D., Macary Marciniak, Pharm.D., and Nicole Pinelli Reitter, Pharm.D. The qualitative research … Read more
Pharm.D. Students Find Balance with Ultimate Frisbee
January 25, 2019Colin Smith sprinted 50 yards down the field as the disc soared above, curling towards the left corner of the end zone. He ran past one defender, in front of a second, and as the disc descended he leaped into the air. A year ago, Smith could only dream of being in this position — a score away from winning the 2018 national championship with UNC Darkside, one of the nation’s elite teams in ultimate. As an undergraduate at Texas A&M University, Smith spent three years playing ultimate, the sport colloquially known as Ultimate Frisbee. But each year, he was … Read more
Skrajna Awarded American Cancer Society Postdoc Fellowship
January 24, 2019Aleksandra Skrajna, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been awarded a three-year post-doctoral fellowship from the American Cancer Society. The fellowship, worth over $150,000 over three years, supports the training of promising post-doctoral scientists in preparation for independent careers in cancer research. Skrajna works in the lab of Robert McGinty, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor at the School and an associate Lineberger member. Skrajna’s research is focused on how enzymes bind to our genetic material in cells to ensure that our genes are expressed appropriately. “By understanding how … Read more
CMO Summit Takes On Medication Mismanagement
January 22, 2019The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and the School’s Center for Medication Optimization brought together leaders from across the health care industry to highlight the multi-billion dollar problem of medication mismanagement and develop collaborative medication optimization strategies that aim to transform health care. More than half of the U.S. population takes multiple medications daily to help treat one or more chronic conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes. Other serious conditions, like cancer and HIV, have extremely complex regimens that must be coordinated. And when these medication regimens are mismanaged by health care providers and patients, it can lead to unnecessary medical … Read more
Anselmo Wins Pharmaceutics Young Investigator Award
January 14, 2019Aaron Anselmo, Ph.D., has been named the 2018 Young Investigator Award winner by Pharmaceutics. Anselmo is an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. His research focuses on developing pharmaceutics-based approaches to deliver therapeutic bacteria, combining pharmaceutics fundamentals to inform the engineering of new delivery systems for the microbiota. This work overlaps microbiology and microbe ecology, pharmaceutics, engineering and drug delivery to develop new strategies for treating microbiota-related disorders. Anselmo received his B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the … Read more