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Children’s experience of psychotropic polypharmacy and disparities in care

October 14, 2024

A new paper in Psychiatric Services by Kathleen C. Thomas, PhD, in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy (DPOP), raises concerns about disparities in care in children with high needs. The paper describes psychotropic polypharmacy, the use of multiple psychotropic drugs to treat a patient, and its association with neighborhood context in a cohort of children with psychiatric conditions, intellectual and developmental disability, and complex medical conditions living in North Carolina. “This paper highlights our concern that, even after accounting for clinical conditions, neighborhood context is associated with children’s experience of psychotropic polypharmacy,” Thomas said. “The findings underscore concerns … Read more


Carolyn Thorpe promoted to full professor 

October 9, 2024

For Carolyn Thorpe, PhD, her career path has always been about understanding how people adjust to health challenges, especially chronic illness. With a background in psychology and a master’s in public health, she was first drawn to how individuals manage life-altering diagnoses. “Research was a good fit for my skills and interest,” Thorpe said, recalling her early days working on health behavior research.  She earned her PhD in health behavior from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health where her focus shifted to treatment adherence—understanding how patients carry out prescribed medical plans. “It’s one thing to adjust to illness, … Read more


Royster Fellow finds passion for research 

September 11, 2024

Royster Fellow Alita Miller, PhD student at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, discovered pharmaceutical sciences unexpectedly.   She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biomedical engineering from Purdue University with the original intent of attending medical school and having an engineering job as a backup plan.   However, during her sophomore year she joined a lab and ended up falling in love with research.   “I understood more that research is where you actually get to come up with ideas, test those ideas, and then hand them off to people like doctors,” she said. “Doctors have to use more established ideas, … Read more


New PhD student arrives as an NSF Fellow 

August 21, 2024

Abbey Oliver is joining the PhD program at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and it already feels like coming home. Having grown up in Cary and Charlotte, returning to the Triangle area after finishing her undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is comforting.  “This very much feels like home to me, and I’m very happy to be back in this area,” she said.   Not only is Oliver joining the School, but she’s joining as a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow. This is the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, and it … Read more


Working to help improve health outcomes, address substance misuse in the Lumbee Tribe 

August 20, 2024

The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina is one of the largest tribes in the Eastern United States. Their tribal homeland is in Robeson, Hoke, and Scotland counties. These areas are impacted by persistent poverty and other adverse social determinates of health. According to the County Health Rankings, Robeson county ranks last among the state’s 100 counties in health outcomes.   To improve these outcomes and build upon the previous work done in the Lumbee Tribe and across the state, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Ronny Bell, PhD, and Delesha Carpenter, PhD, will join a multi-disciplinary group that will utilize existing … Read more


Ph.D. student is the first health economics and outcomes research predoctoral fellow at Novo Nordisk 

July 31, 2024

Angelo Navas, third-year Ph.D. student at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, became passionate about health care as a child in Peru. His first memory of receiving care was due to a traumatic accident that almost took his life.  “I still remember the look of dedication the doctor had as she did my stitches,” he said. “I grew up thinking, if they can do this even with limited resources in an area of poverty, I would like to be involved in any capacity in health care to improve access to better resources.”  This passion led Navas to pursue research on … Read more


Work to reduce overdoses is personal for one researcher 

July 29, 2024

“Naloxone saves lives,” said Grace Marley, Pharm.D. ‘23, research assistant professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy (DPOP) at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.   The drug, naloxone, is a medication that acts quickly to reverse opioid overdoses and restore breathing. Opioid overdoses are a major public health concern in the U.S. and caused nearly 83,000 deaths in 2022.  Marley, first author on a recently published paper in JAMA Health Forum, is passionate about the opioid epidemic and helping pharmacists reduce overdose harm. The experience of losing her brother three years ago to substance use disorder drives her … Read more


Expiring medications have potential negative impact on long space missions

July 24, 2024

A recent study found that over half of the medications routinely stored on the International Space Station (ISS) will expire in less than 36 months – the approximate duration of a mission to and from Mars – leaving astronauts on board susceptible to using ineffective medications and accepting any potential risks.   The paper, recently published in npjMicrogravity, a Nature journal, outlines the shelf life of 91 medications typically on board the ISS, including pain relievers, allergy medications, sleep aids, nausea medicine and more.  The inspiration for this study began three years ago when UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy alumnus Tom … Read more


Lisa Tarantino appointed as new Assistant Dean for Research 

June 26, 2024

The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy has appointed its new Assistant Dean for Research. Lisa Tarantino, Ph.D., will join the School and its research enterprise on July 1.   Tarantino has her own lab in the UNC School of Medicine, Department of Genetics, but in her role as the faculty director of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program (BBSP), she discovered her interest in working on an administrative level.   “For the last four years, I’ve been the faculty director for the medical school’s biomedical graduate program,” said Tarantino. “Through that role, I realized that I really enjoyed learning how the University functions … Read more


NIH award leads to deeper study of brain malformations 

June 24, 2024

How seizures, epilepsy and other brain malformations develop from genetic variants is not fully understood, but a new National Institutes of Health (NIH) award will pave the way toward understanding the cause and potentially lead to new therapies.   New (non-inherited) genetic variants can arise as cells divide during embryonic development and give rise to mosaicism—sets of cells that are genetically different from one another. Such variants have been shown to cause seizures and brain malformations. The abnormal mosaic brain tissue can sometimes be surgically removed to treat the seizures caused by these genetic variants.   This new NIH award of more … Read more