Category: News
Professor advancing first inhaled antibody treatment for RSV
February 26, 2024Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes lower respiratory tract infection in millions each year and is the leading cause of hospitalization in young children. It is also responsible for over a hundred thousand hospitalizations each year among the immunocompromised and the elderly. Sam Lai, Ph.D., professor in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and his lab, have created an inhaled “muco-trapping” monoclonal antibody that effectively treats RSV infections, called Mota-MT. “Building off of our experience with COVID and the challenge that comes with vaccine hesitancy, our team was motivated to explore an … Read more
Using AI to build a smart sensing device
February 22, 2024Alexander Tropsha, Ph.D., is using machine learning and artificial intelligence to help his collaborators at Harvard build a portable chemical gas sensing device called iNOSES that will help identify volatiles in the air. Tropsha, K.H. Lee Distinguished Professor in the Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and collaborators at Harvard University, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant as part of the Convergence Accelerator program. The program is investing nearly $10 million across several projects to develop transformative bio-inspired solutions, like iNOSES. “The proposed bioinspired device employs a ‘sniffing’ sequence of … Read more
New leaders in pharmacy: Yevgeny Brudno
February 20, 2024Yevgeny (Yev) Brudno, Ph.D., joined the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy as an associate professor in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics (DPMP) in January after serving as adjunct faculty for six years. He also holds an appointment in the joint department of biomedical engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. “I’m excited to work with friends and colleagues at the school of pharmacy to bring potent and affordable therapies to patients both in the U.S. and around the world,” said Brudno. Brudno received dual degrees in chemistry and biophysics with … Read more
History of pharmacy school desegregation
February 19, 2024In honor of Black History Month, the stories of the first three African American students at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy have been documented in a paper published in the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. The paper, entitled “From Desegregation and Integration to Diversity and Inclusion: The Environment Was Just Ice”, was led by alumna Christian Brown, Pharm.D. ‘23, alongside Carla Y. White, BS Pharm, associate professor and Associate Dean of Organizational Diversity and Inclusion, Benjamin Urick, Pharm.D., Ph.D., adjunct professor, senior principal health outcomes researcher at Prime Therapeutics and Gregory Bond, Ph.D., sports archivist and curator at the … Read more
Mollie Scott joins ABCCM Board of Directors
February 15, 2024Mollie Scott, Pharm.D., Regional Associate Dean for the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Asheville campus, has been named as a new member of the board of directors for Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry’s (ABCCM) Doctors’ Medical Clinic. “I am thrilled to be named as a member of the ABCCM Medical Ministry Board of Directors,” said Scott. “ABCCM is a critical organization for our community and provides essential services for those in need. Our pharmacy students and faculty have volunteered at the medical clinic for decades, and I look forward to ongoing collaborations to address social determinants of health in vulnerable … Read more
School partners with Carolina Across 100 to launch third rural pharmacy hub
February 14, 2024The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy was recently awarded a $200,000 grant from Carolina Across 100 to launch a third rural pharmacy hub at the Roanoke Chowan Community Health Center in Ahoskie, North Carolina as part of the School’s Rural Pharmacy Health Initiative. This grant enables the School to extend its reach to people in medically underserved communities across North Carolina. The goal is to improve access to care in these areas while creating new, sustainable models for rural health care. “I’m so grateful to Carolina Across 100 for recognizing the importance of this endeavor—not only are we reaching rural … Read more
Highlighting the impact of rural pharmacies through practice-based research
February 12, 2024The Rural Research Alliance of Community Pharmacies (RURAL-CP) is the first multi-state practice-based research network (PBRN) exclusively for rural community pharmacies. PBRNs work to identify clinical questions of interest to health care professionals and design studies to answer those questions. Although other pharmacy PBRNs exist, before RURAL-CP, none have focused exclusively on rural community pharmacies. The RURAL-CP’s mission is to reduce rural health disparities by supporting high-quality implementation research. This network will identify pressing research priorities in rural pharmacies and evaluate the implementation of pharmacy practices in rural areas with the goal of amplifying the voice of rural pharmacies … Read more
Associate Professor awarded $2 million to study the effect of antibody-based therapies
February 7, 2024Associate Professor Carter Cao, Ph.D., in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics, is harnessing the power of quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) and cutting-edge computational modeling and simulation tools to understand how antibody-based treatments interact among diverse biological contexts. Cao’s research looks at the dynamics and mechanisms of the immune system in response to the constantly evolving diseases in our world. Using QSP, computational modeling and simulation tools will provide multi-dimensional data that navigates the body’s dynamic physiology. It will study how each immune system, diseases and antibodies interact with each other, with the hope … Read more
An innovation engine evolves
February 6, 2024Eshelman Innovation begins its second decade with a new look and a blueprint for moving groundbreaking health care therapeutics and digital health ideas to reality. Written by Logan Ward It took the urgency of a global pandemic to hone the “Eshelman Way.” The Eshelman Way is shorthand for the winning process forged by trial and error by the Eshelman Institute for Innovation, launched in 2014 with a $100 million gift — the largest individual commitment in the University’s history — from Carolina alumnus Fred Eshelman to turn great ideas into health care products and services that improve lives in … Read more
Fellow receives two awards from ASCPT
February 5, 2024UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy fellow, Miramar Kardouh, Pharm.D., was selected as a recipient of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) 2024 Presidential Trainee Award and the 2024 David J. Goldstein Trainee Award. The Presidential Trainee Award is given by the scientific program committee who selects the top scoring abstracts by clinical pharmacologists and translational scientists in training. The David J. Goldstein Trainee Award is given to the highest scoring trainee abstract in honor of the longtime ASCPT member, who was committed to trainees and the future of the discipline of clinical pharmacology. “I’m ecstatic to get … Read more