Category: Grants and Awards
Eshelman Institute Awards $3.5 Million in June 2018 Funding Round
June 20, 2018The Eshelman Institute for Innovation on June 1 funded projects proposed by 25 UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy faculty and staff members totaling more than $3.5 million. The Eshelman Institute was created by a $100 million gift from alumnus, philanthropist and pharmaceutical executive Fred Eshelman, Pharm.D., to the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in December 2014. The institute aims to inspire a culture of innovation where imagination and creative solutions accelerate change in education, research and health care. The Eshelman Institute has awarded more than $20.8 million since 2015. Awards are divided into three funding tiers: tier 1 projects are funded up to $50,000, … Read more
Carpenter Wins AHEC Innovation Grant for Pediatric Opioid Prescription Research
May 21, 2018The North Carolina Area Health Education Centers awarded an Innovation Grant to Delesha Carpenter, Ph.D., M.S.P.H., to create an online module that prepares medical residents to communicate with pediatric patients and their parents about opioids. The grant of more than $45,000 will allow Carpenter, an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, to develop an online module to teach medical residents to effectively engage pediatric patients and their parents in shared decision-making about treatment with opioid medications. Currently, there are no national opioid prescribing guidelines for pediatric patients, which can … Read more
Batrakova Gets $1.7 Million Grant to Treat Parkinson’s with Cell-Delivered Gene Therapy
April 16, 2018Elena Batrakova, Ph.D., is principal investigator on a new R01 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to explore cell-based gene delivery to the brain as a therapy for Parkinson’s disease. The grant is worth up to $1.7 million over five years. Batrakova and her team at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery will genetically modify white blood cells called monocytes to produce glial cell–derived neurotrophic factor, or GDNF, and deliver it to the brain. Glial cells provide support and protection for nerve cells throughout the brain and body, and GDNF … Read more
Ives to Lead Opioid De-Prescribing Study with $9 Million PCORI Grant
December 13, 2017Timothy Ives, Pharm.D., M.P.H., is leading one arm of a joint study between UNC, Duke, Vanderbilt and RTI International focusing on opioid de-prescribing that is funded by a $9 million grant from the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The study will start Feb. 1. Ives’ part of the study will recruit 300 or so patients who were prescribed opioids for chronic pain. Half will be examined by the pain management clinic at UNC and the other half will be treated according to the pain management regimen they’ve already been prescribed. Ives said his work at the clinic differs from other pain … Read more
Bowers Receives $1.9 M NIGMS Outstanding Investigator Award
December 7, 2017Albert Bowers, Ph.D., has received a R35 Outstanding Investigator Award worth more than $1.9 million over five years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to study the chemoenzymatic synthesis, mode of action and evolution of natural product-based macrocycles. Bowers is an assistant professor in the School’s Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry. He is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and affiliate member of the Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery. “Natural peptide macrocycles are promising next-generation therapeutics, due to their abilities to bind to challenging protein targets, such as protein interfaces … Read more
SGC-UNC Collaborates on $2.3 Million Project to Create Open Source Tech for Gene Discovery in Plants
November 30, 2017Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hub of the international Structural Genomics Consortium will partner with the University of California, Davis to study the genes of rice plants responsible for root growth. The scientists will create an open source database and lay the groundwork for developing new varieties of drought resistant crops. The work is supported by a $1 million Seeding Solutions grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, a nonprofit established in the 2014 Farm Bill with bipartisan congressional support. The FFAR grant has been matched with funding from the UC Davis Innovation … Read more
Cao Receives R35 Outstanding Investigator Grant
November 16, 2017Yanguang “Carter” Cao, Ph.D., has received an R35 Outstanding Investigator Grant worth $1.85 million over five years from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to create a platform to optimize antibody-based therapy. “Therapeutic antibodies have achieved great success in a variety of autoimmune diseases and cancers; however, their full therapeutic potential has not yet been realized,” said Cao, an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Many FDA-approved antibodies now face high therapeutic hurdles, such as inadequate efficacy when used alone and high occurrences of resistance, and many of … Read more
Pharm.D. RASP Students Win National Research Grants
November 9, 2017Amy Lin and Kevin Straughn, both third-year Pharm.D. candidates, have won nationally competitive research grants. Both students are members of the Research and Scholarship in Pharmacy program, a pathway in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy built around a mentored, in-depth scholarly project. Lin was awarded the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education’s Gateway to Research Scholarship. Her project is titled, “Developing Hippeastrine Derivatives to Treat and Understand Zika Virus Infection.” Her mentor is Qisheng Zhang, Ph.D., and her award was $5,000. Straughn was awarded the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Research Institute’s Futures Grant Student and Resident Investigator Award. His … Read more
Brouwer Receives $2.6 Million NIGMS Outstanding Investigator Research Award
November 8, 2017Kim L.R. Brouwer, Pharm.D., Ph.D., has received an Outstanding Investigator Research Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The award is a National Institutes of Health R35 Senior Investigator Award worth $2.6 million over five years. Brouwer is the W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and the School’s associate dean for research and graduate education. The project is titled “Mechanisms of altered hepatic transport: Impact on drug therapy” and will run through the end of March 2022. The study will answer key questions related to the hepatic transport of bile acids … Read more
Young Innovators Program Receives Burroughs Wellcome Fund Award
October 31, 2017The Young Innovators Program, the Eshelman Institute of Innovation’s immersive research experiential program for high school students, has been awarded the Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Student Science Enrichment Program Award of $180,000 over three years. The SSEP’s primary goal is to enable high school students to participate in creative, hands-on scientific activities and pursue inquiry-based exploration in BWF’s home state of North Carolina. YIP was launched in 2016 as part of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s effort to broaden its outreach and diversity. During each summer, student interns participate in cutting edge research projects in leading labs at the School … Read more