Category: Research
Undergraduate in Singleton Lab to Present Research
April 26, 2007Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is an escalating healthcare concern. Hala Borno, an undergraduate student conducting research with Associate Professor Scott Singleton at the UNC School of Pharmacy, has produced promising results that could become the first step in a finding new solution to that problem. Borno, a junior chemistry major, will present her findings Friday, April 27, at 2:00 p.m. at the Eighth Annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research at UNC-Chapel Hill. The event will be held at the Center for Dramatic Art from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. More than ninety students across campus disciplines will present their work. Borno is … Read more
Raed Khashan Wins CCG Excellence Award
April 13, 2007Raed Khashan, a doctoral student at the UNC School of Pharmacy, has won a Chemical Computing Group Excellence Award from the American Chemical Society’s Division of Computers in Chemistry. Khashan, who is in the School’s Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, is one of five recipients for the award. He will receive $1,150 and a copy of CCG’s Molecular Operating Environment software with a one-year license. The winners will present their work at the ACS national meeting in Boston on August 21. Khashan, who obtained his master’s degree in pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin, entered the … Read more
McLeod Forms New Individualized Therapy Institute at UNC
March 15, 2007New Pharmacy Professor Seeks to Match the Medicine to the Patient Howard McLeod, PharmD, wants to help physicians get it right the first time when they select a medicine to treat cancer and other illnesses. He is heading a new research institute at the UNC School of Pharmacy that will find ways to match medicines to the unique makeup of the people needing them. “In cancer and almost every other area of medicine, there are multiple drugs that work,” McLeod says. “But none of them work more than half the time. So when prescribers are faced with choosing what medicine … Read more
School Rises to Eighth Nationally in NIH Funding
February 7, 2007The UNC School of Pharmacy now ranks eighth among the nation’s pharmacy schools in grants and contracts awarded by the National Institutes of Health, according to numbers compiled by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. School researchers were awarded more than $8.2 million in research funding from the NIH in 2006, up from $5.8 million last year. The School ranked fourteenth in NIH funding in 2005 and seventeenth in 2004. “The success we have had in attracting greater NIH support over the past few years reflects how serious we are about building the School’s research enterprise,” Dean Bob Blouin … Read more
Kashuba Awarded $1.7 Million to Study Drug-Interaction Potential of New HIV Protease Inhibitor
June 19, 2006Angela D. M. Kashuba, PharmD, has been awarded a $1.7 million contract from Boehringer Ingelheim to study the drug-interaction potential of tipranavir, a new HIV protease inhibitor. Protease is an enzyme that HIV needs in order to make new viruses. When protease is blocked, HIV makes copies of itself that can’t infect new cells. According to Kashuba, many individual drug-drug interaction studies have demonstrated tipranavir’s high interaction potential. Kashuba’s novel phenotyping approach will help in understanding the basis for these interactions and will form the groundwork for further exploration of potentially important drug interactions. The title of Kashuba’s project is “Evaluating the Effects of Tipranavir (with Ritonavir) … Read more
Hansen Receives NIH Career Development Award
June 14, 2006Richard Hansen, PhD, was named a Clinical Research Scholar under the UNC Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Career Development Program. This award is part of the National Institutes of Health Roadmap Initiative and will provide salary and research funding over five years to support Hansen’s work in the multidisciplinary management of depression in primary care. Hansen’s project “The Quality of Antidepressant Use in Primary Care” focuses on understanding and improving adherence to antidepressants in non-psychiatric settings. The UNC MCRCDP is designed to re-engineer the clinical research enterprise by training new clinical research leaders, which is a key component of the NIH Roadmap. Eugene … Read more
Kohn Awarded $1.3 Million to Study Treatment of Neurological Disorders
June 14, 2006Harold Kohn, PhD, Kenan Professor in the UNC School of Pharmacy’s Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, has been awarded a $1.3 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The title of Kohn’s project is “Novel Methods to Identify Targets of the Neurological Agent (R)-Lacosamide.” The NIH-funded study is a joint project between the Kohn and Rihe Liu Laboratories. Liu is an assistant professor at the School. According to Kohn’s proposal, epilepsy and neuropathic pain are major neurological disorders that can be treated with a number of different seizure medications. “Even with the use of these medications, many … Read more
Sleath Awarded Travel Grant to Help Glaucoma Patients in India
May 25, 2006Betsy Sleath, PhD, associate professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy, has been awarded a travel grant from the UNC Partnership in Global Health to support her proposal “Improving Treatment Adherence of Glaucoma Patients in Southern India.” In 2004 Sleath and Alan Robin, MD, associate professor of ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University, developed a a survey to examine problems that patients were having using glaucoma medications. Sleath and Robin recently modified the survey for use at the Aravind Eye Care System in southern rural India. The Aravind Eye Care System offers essentially free eye care to individuals at five eye clinics and hospitals in southern India. Despite the free … Read more
Researchers Link Gene Variation to Coronary Heart Disease
May 24, 2006Research led by Craig Lee, PharmD, a graduate student in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics, shows that a common genetic variation makes some people more susceptible to coronary heart disease. About 15 percent of all Caucasians have the genetic variation, which is also known as a polymorphism. Those who carry the polymorphism are approximately 1.5 times more likely to have a CHD event, such as a heart attack, than those who do not. “We found that Caucasians who carry this polymorphism, named K55R, were at significantly higher risk of coronary heart disease, independent of other risk factors, like cigarette smoking, diabetes, and hypertension,” said … Read more
DPET News Briefs
April 28, 2006Angela Kashuba, associate professor, has been awarded $1.8 million to evaluate the drug interaction potential of a new HIV protease inhibitor. Bruce Canaday, clinical professor, was installed on March 20 as the 2006-2007 APhA president. Jo Ellen Rodgers, clinical assistant professor, is president-elect, Cardiology PRN. Tim Ives, associate professor, was elected secretary of the AACP Pharmacy Practice Section. Ralph Raasch, associate professor, and Christine Walko, academic fellow, received the PY3 Instructor of the Year Award. Dee Melnyk, clinical assistant professor, was named AHEC Instructor of the Year. Angela Kashuba, associate professor, and Julie Dumond, academic fellow, have received the ACCP Infectious Disease Fellowship Award.