Category: Grants and Awards
Klarissa Jackson, Ph.D., receives ASPET’s Richard Okita Early Career Award in Drug Metabolism and Disposition
February 22, 2023The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapy (ASPET) Division for Drug Metabolism and Disposition has awarded Klarissa Jackson, Ph.D. the 2023 Richard Okita Early Career Award in Drug Metabolism and Disposition. ASPET awards are awarded to professionals who display excellence in the field of pharmacology. Jackson is receiving this award in recognition of her translational research in drug metabolism and disposition focused on individual variations in cytochrome P450-mediated drug metabolism and adverse reactions in patients from understudied ethnic backgrounds. “I am so grateful to receive this award,” said Jackson. “I thank God for this opportunity. I thank the ASPET … Read more
Eshelman Institute for Innovation partners with the HBCU Founders Initiative to serve underrepresented populations
February 13, 2023The Eshelman Institute for Innovation, within the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, is partnering with the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Founders Initiative (HBCUFI) to create PowerUp, a program that will identify and support innovators as they try to solve health equity challenges in underrepresented communities across North Carolina. PowerUp aims to connect top talent with investment and advisory support to launch innovative digital health startups that will provide health care solutions to communities. The key partner in this program, the HBCU Founders Initiative, is a non-profit organization that supports HBCU students, alumni and faculty along their entrepreneurial journey. The … Read more
Kristy Ainslie receives $3.2 million from NIH to develop new vaccine
February 6, 2023The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy Professor Kristy Ainslie, Ph.D., chair of the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics with a five-year grant to develop a new vaccine to treat orthopoxviruses. The NIH is providing over $3.2 million dollars of funding toward Ainslie’s project “Mechanistic evaluation of mast cell agonists combined with TLR, NOD and STING agonists.” Orthopoxvirus is a genus of virus that include smallpox and other animal pox like monkey pox and rabbit pox. The current vaccine is a live virus, which cannot be given to people with a weakened immune … Read more
Kristy Ainslie receives 2023 Sato Memorial International Award
January 30, 2023Kristy Ainslie, Ph.D., has been named the recipient of the 2023 Sato Memorial International Award. The Sato Memorial fund presents this award to a person who has greatly contributed to the fields of pharmacology, therapeutics and pharmaceutical sciences in the United States. The Sato memorial fund was created to encourage innovation in pharmaceutical science research through the exchange of scientists between Japan and the United States. Keeping in line with this vision, Ainslie will travel to Sapporo, Japan in March to receive this award at the 143rd Annual Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan. “It’s really an incredible honor to … Read more
Betsy Sleath awarded funding for research to improve quality of life for youth with ADHD
January 25, 2023The National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) has awarded Betsy Sleath, Ph.D. regional associate dean of eastern North Carolina and her team, funding for research that hopes to help improve the symptoms and social and school functioning of young people diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The NIMH is providing nearly $450,000 for Sleath’s project “Improving the outcomes of adolescents with ADHD via a pre-visit question prompt list/video intervention: a randomized controlled feasibility trial.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ADHD is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders found in childhood. The CDC estimates that from … Read more
Jo Ellen Rodgers wins University Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction
January 10, 2023UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy Professor Jo Ellen Rodgers, Pharm.D., has been named one of 25 UNC-Chapel Hill faculty members to receive a 2023 University Teaching Award. The annual awards, administered by the Center for Faculty Excellence, acknowledge the commitment to outstanding teaching and mentoring of undergraduate, graduate and post-baccalaureate students. This year, the CFE’s University Teaching Awards Committee received 876 nominations. Rodgers is one of four faculty members from across the University to be named as a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction. This award was first given by the University in 1995 to recognize the … Read more
UNC-Chapel Hill Pharmacy professor receives funding to upgrade school’s NMR probe
December 7, 2022The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has granted Professor Andrew Lee, Ph.D., in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, funding to upgrade the school’s workhorse NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) instrument. The NIH is providing approximately $600,000 towards upgrading this piece of equipment with a cryoprobe. A cryoprobe is an NMR probe that is cryogenically cooled resulting in a large boost in sensitivity for the instrument. The cryoprobe is becoming the standard for NMR instruments in academics and industry, allowing chemists more precision and accuracy when examining small molecules. “We pursued this grant because our workhorse NMR instrument in the School’s … Read more
UNC-Chapel Hill Pharmacy Professor receives $1.8M grant for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy project
November 28, 2022The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy Professor Delesha Carpenter Ph.D., MSPH, funding for her project “Addressing COVID 19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Rural Community Pharmacies Reducing Disparities Through an Implementation Science Approach.” The NIH is providing three years of funding towards this project for a total of 1.8 million dollars. Carpenter is an associate professor and interim chair of the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy. Her research focuses on developing trainings to improve patient-provider communication about sensitive issues, like suicide and substance abuse use disorders. She is especially interested in improving access … Read more
UNC-Chapel Hill Pharmacy professor receives 1.9M grant from NHLBI to develop a living drug depot to treat heart attacks
November 23, 2022Juliane Nguyen, an associate professor in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy has recently received an $1.9M R01 grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHBLI) to develop a non-invasive, living drug depot to treat heart attacks. “Cardiovascular disease is still the number one cause of death in the United States,” said Nguyen. “One bottleneck to achieving therapeutically relevant cell concentrations at the infarct site after myocardial infarction is the poor cell engraftment and retention of vehicles at the target site. Here we propose the first-of-its- kind, tunable, replenishable … Read more
QleanAir partnership, artificial intelligence to support work of UNC-Chapel Hill pharmacy professor aiming to reduce contamination in compounding pharmacies
November 21, 2022UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Stephen Eckel, Pharm.D., M.H.A. and Robert Hubal, Ph.D., a research scientist at RENCI, are working together to reduce occurrences of contamination in compounding pharmacies using artificial intelligence. A partnership with QleanAir, along with previous grant support from the Eshelman Institute for Innovation (EII), will drive their work forward. “As a Global company with a focus in healthcare, we are dedicated to protecting people, products, and processes. We are pleased to support the development of tomorrow’s technology to improve upon patient safety, drive operational compliance, and to enhance sterile compounding practices” said Amanda Myers, chief commercial … Read more