Category: Grants and Awards
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
Jacob Ramsey Awarded Fellowship Grant for Cancer Research
November 14, 2022The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded PhD candidate Jacob Ramsey a fellowship grant for his project “Drug Retention and Tumor Distribution of Polymeric Micelles for Cancer Therapy.” Ramsey, the Lead PI on the project is aided by his mentor, Professor Alexander “Sasha” Kabanov. “The goal of this project is to understand how drug encapsulation in polymeric micelle nanoparticles improves the delivery of drugs to tumors,” said Ramsey. “Here we seek to understand what principles govern drug retention in polymeric micelles, which is essential to tumor delivery and will help ensure the efficient development and translation of these promising drug … Read more
Four PharmAlliance grants awarded during fifth funding round
December 9, 2019In the fifth PharmAlliance funding round, a total of 14 project proposals were submitted for consideration. Following careful deliberation by the Research and Enterprise Working Group and the Deans Group, four grants totaling $226,102 were awarded. Congratulations to the following successful individuals: Michael Wolcott (UNC), Denise Rhoney (UNC), Jacqui McLaughlin (UNC), Amanda Olsen (UNC), Kayley Lyons (Monash), Steven Walker (Monash), Terry Ng (UCL), and Satinder Sembi (UCL) for their proposal: Anything Grows: Design of an intervention to promote a growth mindset across PharmAlliance institutions Cornelia Landersdorfer (Monash), Jenni Ilomaki (Monash), Gauri Rao (UNC), David van Duin (UNC), Roger Nation (Monash) … Read more
Dean Kashuba earns ASCPT’s Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award
October 30, 2019Each year, the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (ASCPT) recognizes individuals who exhibit outstanding science and achievement in clinical pharmacology and translational science. ASCPT’s awards span clinical pharmacology, translational medicine and therapeutics, and recognize every stage of a career path. This year, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Dean Angela Kashuba received the Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award. The award was established in 1978 by Dr. W. B. Rawls to further his commitment to continuing medical education and its impact on patient care. The goal of the Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award is to incorporate the efforts of modern … Read more
Students Select 2019 Best Instructors; Phil Rodgers Wins Top Award
May 2, 2019Pharm.D. students at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy selected the Instructor of the Year award winners for 2018-19, honoring the winners at the annual awards ceremony on April 13. The Instructor of the Year award recognizes one course instructor from each year of the Pharm.D. curriculum who demonstrates the highest qualities of instructional ability and an interest in both the students and the educational programs of the school. Overall Instructor of the Year Award: Philip Rodgers, Pharm.D. PY3 Instructor of the Year Award: Kathryn Morbitzer, Pharm.D., M.S. PY2 Instructor of the Year Award: Suzanne Harris, Pharm.D. PY1 Instructor of … Read more
Ava Vargason Receives National Science Foundation Research Fellowship
April 29, 2019Ava Vargason, a Ph.D. candidate at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, was awarded the Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Vargason is a second-year Ph.D. candidate in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics, advised by Aaron Anselmo, Ph.D. Her research project focuses on modifying the surface of therapeutic bacteria to enhance their ability to adhere to mucosal and cell surfaces. “By enabling therapeutic bacteria to adhere with high affinity and specificity to locations in the GI tract, we can target areas of injury, such as inflammation or cancer,” Vargason said. “This project holds promise to enhance … Read more
Christine Ko, UNC Team Take Second In CLARION Case Competition
April 26, 2019An interprofessional group of UNC-Chapel Hill health professional students secured second place at the annual CLARION National Case Competition in Minneapolis. Third-year Pharm.D. student Christine Ko of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy was part of the UNC team, along with Natalie Browne of the Gillings School of Global Public Health, Uzma Khan of the Clinical Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling program at the School of Medicine, and Monica Kim of the School of Dentistry. The competition was held at the University of Minnesota on April 13. It was organized by CLARION, a University of Minnesota student organization dedicated to … Read more
Beaudoin, Vogt Earn NIH Predoctoral Research Grants
March 27, 2019Two Ph.D. candidates at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy recently received National Research Service Awards from the National Institutes of Health. Jim Beaudoin, from the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics, and Caleb Vogt, from the Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, received the NRSA grants. Beaudoin is advised by Kim Brouwer, Pharm.D., Ph.D., and Vogt is advised by Jeff Aubé, Ph.D. The NIH grant, known also as an F31, is awarded to promising predoctoral students so that they can obtain individualized, mentored research training while conducting dissertation research. Beaudoin’s research project will investigate organic solute transporter α/β, … Read more
Mucommune Receives Over $3M to Advance Muco-Trapping Antibodies
March 20, 2019Mucommune LLC has been awarded over $3 million in five separate federal grants over the past several months to advance its muco-trapping antibody technology. The company was launched in 2016 by Sam Lai, Ph.D., an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. The muco-trapping antibody technology advanced by Mucommune is based on engineering the Fc region of IgG antibodies to interact with mucins. Tuning the Fc region to combine with mucins enables antibodies to immobilize viral and bacterial pathogens in different mucosal secretions, including respiratory airways, GI tract and female reproductive tract. Once the pathogens are trapped in … Read more