Category: Grants and Awards
Mumper Wins a 2014 Molecules Best Paper Award
January 28, 2014Russ Mumper, PhD, is the recipient of a 2014 Molecules Best Paper Award for a 2010 review of plant phenolic compounds, their processing, and health and medical applications. Mumper is vice dean of the School and the John A. McNeill Distinguished Professor in the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics. Mumper and Jin Dai, PhD, received second prize in the review category for “Plant Phenolics: Extraction, Analysis and Their Antioxidant and Anticancer Properties.” Dai was a graduate student in pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Kentucky at the time the paper was published. The authors wrote: “Plant polyphenols have drawn increasing attention … Read more
Mumper Receives Alumni Award from University of Kentucky
January 27, 2014Russell Mumper, PhD, vice dean of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, has been named as the 2013 recipient of the 2013 University of Kentucky Outstanding Graduate Program Alumnus for the Pharmaceutical Sciences award. The award recognizes graduates of the UK graduate program for their accomplishments and contributions to scholarship, education, and research in the pharmaceutical sciences. Mumper will receive the award at the University of Kentucky on January 31, 2014. This marks the second time a School faculty member has received the honor. Kim Brouwer, PharmD, PhD, the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor and chair of the Division of … Read more
UNC Researchers Receive NIH Grant to Improve Efficacy of Chemotherapy Drugs
January 21, 2014A team led by Cyrus Vaziri, PhD, and William Janzen at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health for research that could help make chemotherapy drugs more effective. Vaziri, the lead principal investigator on the grant, is an associate professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the UNC School of Medicine. Janzen is the director of assay development and compound profiling at the Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. The R01 grant will provide up to $860,000 … Read more
Spinoff NeuroGate Receives $25K Award for Anti-Seizure Drug
January 3, 2014NeuroGate Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical spinoff company founded by UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy professor Harold Kohn, PhD, has received a $25,000 Epilepsy Innovation Seal of Excellence Award from the Epilepsy Foundation to support its development of NGT-168, a potential new anti-seizure drug. Founded in 2011, NeuroGate has developed novel, patentable compounds for the treatment of neuropathic pain and epilepsy. Kohn, a Kenan Distinguished Professor in the School’s Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, says the compounds under development are highly potent in established animal models and have a novel combination of actions on sodium channels that prevent neuronal hyperexcitability, … Read more
Farley Named APhA Fellow
January 2, 2014Joel Farley, PhD, an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, has been selected as a fellow of the American Pharmacists Association. To be selected, an APhA member must have at least ten years of exemplary professional experience and achievements in professional practice and must have rendered outstanding service to the profession through activities in APhA and other organizations. Farley has a long history of service to the APhA. He has been a postgraduate officer of the APhA Academy of Pharmaceutical Research and Science, served on the policy committee in the House of Delegates, and chaired a number … Read more
Kabanov Named a Member of Elite European Academy
November 25, 2013Alexander “Sasha” Kabanov, PhD, has been named a member of the Academia Europaea, joining a distinguished group whose members include fifty-two Nobel Laureates. Kabanov is the Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He also oversees the School’s Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery and codirects the Carolina Institute for Nanomedicine. Academia Europaea has about 3,000 members, which include leading experts from the physical sciences and technology, biological sciences and medicine, mathematics, the letters and humanities, social and cognitive sciences, economics, and law. New members are nominated by their peers and are evaluated based on … Read more
Sam Lai Receives Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering
October 31, 2013Assistant Professor Sam Lai, PhD, is a recipient of a 2013 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, a five-year, $875,000 award that recognizes the nation’s most innovative young scientists. Lai is one of only sixteen recipients nationwide selected from a pool of 100 scientists who are nominated by fifty major research universities. His work combines biophysics and immunology to investigate how antibodies secreted into mucus may interact with mucus constituents to reinforce the body’s first line of defense against pathogens. Lai’s goal is to harness these insights to engineer next-generation antibodies and vaccines for improved protection and therapy at mucosal surfaces. … Read more
Liu Receives $1.2M FDA Grant to Modernize Heparin Quality Control
September 26, 2013Heparin is a widely used blood thinner given to patients to prevent blood clots. However, the drug is sometimes its own worst enemy, as some of its components can cause the very thing it is supposed to stop. Jian Liu, PhD, a professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, has received a grant to help the Food and Drug Administration sniff out those potentially dangerous components in heparin. Liu says the research could help improve the drug’s safety, which has been a hot-button issue since a contaminated supply of heparin caused more than eighty deaths and hundreds of adverse … Read more
Preceptor and Residency Alumna Branham Named NCAP Community Pharmacist of the Year
August 15, 2013Ashley Branham, PharmD, an alumna of the community pharmacy residency program at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, has been named the 2013 Community Care Pharmacist of the Year by the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists. Branham is the director of clinical services at Moose Pharmacy in Concord, North Carolina. She is also a clinical pharmacist at Cabarrus Family Medicine. She serves as the chair of NCAP’s Community Care Practice Forum, as well as the organization’s Immunization Task Force. She also serves as a preceptor for the School and an adjunct instructor in the Division of Practice Advancement and Clinical … Read more
Kappa Epsilon Wins Awards at National Convention
August 15, 2013The School’s Lambda Chapter of Kappa Epsilon received the 2011–2013 National Project Award for breast cancer, the 2011–2013 Community Service Award, and the 2012–2013 Alumni Outreach Award at the pharmacy fraternity’s national biennial convention held July 17–20 in Richmond, Virginia. Ruth-Ann Lee, PharmD, and Heidi Anksorus, PharmD, are KE’s current faculty advisers. Jo Ellen Rodgers, PharmD, also served as adviser during the period covered by the award. “I am very proud of each of these ladies and the great successes they have achieved by working together towards common goals,” Anksorus says.