Category: Grants and Awards
UNC and Duke Researchers Collaborate to Predict Drug Safety in Preemies
February 4, 2015A research duo from UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and Duke University has received a $50,000 grant to develop a new method for predicting drug safety in pediatric patients. The award is part of an effort by the neighboring Clinical and Translational Science Award programs to promote collaborations that translate scientific discoveries into advances in patient care. Treating Premature Patients Daniel Gonzalez, PharmD, PhD, an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics, and Christoph Hornik, MD, MPH, an assistant professor in the Duke School of Medicine, will combine their expertise in pharmaceutical sciences and pediatrics to address … Read more
Kabanov Elected to AIMBE College of Fellows
January 26, 2015Alexander Kabanov, PhD, DrSci, has been elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s College of Fellows, an honor reserved for the top two percent of medical and biological engineers. Kabanov was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows for seminal works on polymeric nanosystems for drug delivery that have considerably influenced current ideas and approaches in nanomedicine, according to AIMBE. Kabanov is the Mescal Swaim Ferguson Distinguished Professor in the Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and director of the School’s Center for Nanotechnology in … Read more
Asheville Administrator Laura Bratsch Wins 2014 Staff Award for Excellence
January 9, 2015When Laura Bratsch, administrative support specialist for the Asheville satellite campus of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, was told that she had to drive from the Great Smokey Mountains to Chapel Hill, she thought that it was to discuss the 2015 pharmacy student curriculum. Instead, she was surprised to learn that she was receiving the Phyllis Smith Staff Award for Excellence. “I was tricked into coming to Chapel Hill, but this turned out to be much better than a meeting,” Bratsch says. “I was honored and completely surprised to win this award.” The award is given every year to … Read more
Call, Christensen Place Third in ASHP Clinical Skills Competition
December 16, 2014The morning of Saturday, December 6, a team of two fourth-year UNC pharmacy students were given a sheet of paper with a list of symptoms and a medical history for an imaginary patient. The two students, Rebecca Call and Erin Christensen were in Anaheim, California representing the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy for the 2014 ASHP Clinical Skills Competition. The patient had bacterial meningitis, and it was the team’s job to identify and decide how to best treat the problem in two hours. The following morning, the pair learned that their treatment plan had placed in the top ten of … Read more
Daniel Crona Wins 2014 Kathryne A. Brewington Award
December 12, 2014Daniel Crona, PharmD, has been awarded the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s 2014 Kathryne A. Brewington Graduate Student Research Award for work identifying the genetic factors associated with cancer survival. Crona’s dissertation research identified and is in the process of validating novel genetic variants associated with survival in patients with advanced or metastatic kidney cancer. Discovery of novel predictive variants could allow health-care providers to identify the patients that would benefit most from treatment with the drug sorafenib. Sorafenib was first approved by the U.S. FDA to treat patients with renal cell carcinoma and was later approved to treat liver … Read more
Bailey, Fang Receive $1.6 Million Grant to Map Health Literacy
December 12, 2014Two researchers from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have received a $1.6 million grant to estimate and map the health literacy of neighborhoods across America. The team plans to use the project to examine health literacy’s effect on hospital readmission rates. Hospitals are penalized by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services if patients who come in for certain conditions return to the hospital within thirty days after discharge. Hospitals Unfairly Penalized? Stacy Bailey, PhD, MPH, and Gang Fang, PharmD, PhD, will use the four-year grant from the National Institute … Read more
UNC Hospitals Pharmacists Recognized for Dramatically Reducing Readmissions
November 24, 2014Pharmacists and physicians at UNC Hospitals created a pilot clinic that reduced thirty-day readmission rates for its patients by 65 percent and is now projected to save the hospital $1.1 million per year. This innovation has earned UNC Hospitals a fourth consecutive Best Practices Award from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. The clinics were set up by faculty from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and the UNC School of Medicine to schedule follow-up visits for patients recently discharged from the hospital. Reducing Readmissions Hospital readmissions cost the U.S. health-care system an estimated $17.4 billion a year. More than … Read more
Watkins Receives ASCPT Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award
October 31, 2014Paul Watkins, MD, is the recipient of the the 2015 Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award from the American Institute of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics for multiple contributions to the field of clinical pharmacology. Watkins is a professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and a professor of toxicology at the UNC Gillings School of Public Health. He is director of the Hamner–UNC Institute for Drug Safety Sciences. Established in 1978, the Rawls-Palmer award is given to those who contribute meaningful research that improves patient care. Watkins has been invited to give … Read more
Oni-Orisan Receives ACCP Best Resident and Fellow Poster Award
October 24, 2014Akinyemi Oni-Orisan, PharmD, was awarded the Best Resident and Fellow Poster Award from the American College of Clinical Pharmacy during the 2014 ACCP Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas. Oni-Orisan is a PhD candidate in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics, and his poster was competing against more than 400 other posters for the award. He received a plaque and a $350 gift card for winning the award. Oni-Orisan’s poster was titled “Initial Characterization of Cytochrome P450-Derived Eicosanoids as a Predictive Biomarker in Coronary Artery Disease Using Metabolomics” and presented research on molecular indicators in the blood that could give … Read more
Sleath Gets $1.9 Million to Involve Teens More in Managing Asthma
October 22, 2014Teens with asthma aren’t great at taking an active role during doctor visits. A team at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy believes changing that is a matter of asking the right questions. Working with a group of teens and parents, a research group led by Betsy Sleath, PhD, has developed a set of questions teens can use as prompts for discussing their asthma with their physician. Sleath has received a three-year, $1.9 million contract grant from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to produce an educational video in English and Spanish that will encourage teens and parents to use the … Read more