Kim L.R. Brouwer, Pharm.D., Ph.D., is the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, associate dean for research and graduate education, and a professor in the curriculum in toxicology.
Drug Optimization: PhD Program
Working from bench to bedside
The Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics has the unique responsibility within the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy to provide classroom and clinical instruction for pharmacy students in the practice of pharmacy and to train graduate and postgraduate scientists in the principles of translational research. We engage in innovative teaching and research, preparing our students to be professional and scientific leaders.
Our PhD program develops scientists who excel at conducting innovative and clinically relevant translational research that integrates biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences in a laboratory- and computer-based environments that leverage preclinical and clinical investigations.
We generate and disseminate new knowledge in pharmacotherapy and accelerate its application to improve patient care through:
- Delivering innovative education and training
- Integrating experimental and clinical pharmacology discoveries into the practice of precision medicine
- Unique collaborations with industry, regulatory agencies, renowned health science centers, and international entities
- Leading and participating in local, state, national and international organizations, communities, and programs.
- Engaging students in innovative clinical and translational research
Tracks for Clinicians and Non-Clinicians
The concentration area in pharmacotherapy and experimental therapeutics was developed with two curricular tracks based on previous experience of the applicant:
- Clinician track: for students with a Pharm.D. or M.D., or equivalent
- Nonclinician track: for highly motivated, exceptionally qualified students lacking previous clinical training
Areas of coursework and research
- Drug metabolism and transport
- Pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics/pharmacometrics
- Pharmacogenomics
- Clinical research
- Experimental therapeutics
- Mechanisms of drug toxicity
These are applied to therapeutic areas, including:
- cardiovascular disease,
- hepatology/gastroenterology/transplant,
- infectious disease/HIV,
- oncology/hematology, and
- pulmonary disease
Graduates from both tracks have enjoyed an outstanding employment rate in both academia and the pharmaceutical industry.
DPET Fellowship and Graduate Student 2020 Webinar & Brochure
2020 Webinar Brochure
For applicants interested in applying for 2022 admission, an informational webinar will be held on September 30, 2021 and a Q&A session will follow on October 5, 2021.
Click Here to Register for WebinarsCurriculum
Faculty and Staff
Our faculty include clinical practitioners who bring insights from the patient-care setting to their teaching, translational research, and professional service activities. Many of our faculty hold joint appointments in the UNC School of Medicine, the Department of Pharmacy at the UNC Medical Center, and other allied health schools. They lend their expertise through speaking engagements and memberships on advisory panels and committees, and play important roles in local, state, national, and international organizations.
DPET Primary Faculty
Yanguang Cao
Yanguang Cao, Ph.D., joined the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy as an assistant professor in the division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. He received his Ph.D. at China Pharmaceutical University. Prior to joining the School, Cao served as a research assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo for two years after completing a postdoctoral training program at SUNY, Buffalo.
Rachel Church
Rachel Church, PhD, is a research assistant professor within the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and the Director of the Organ Injury Biomarker Core within the UNC Institute for Drug Safety Sciences. Dr. Church’s has expertise in identifying and characterizing novel translational biomarkers of drug-induced organ injury, especially drug-induced liver injury, and developing innovative methodologies to maximize the utility of traditional biomarkers.
Amber Cipriani
Amber.Cipriani@unchealth.unc.edu
Amber Cipriani, Pharm.D., joined the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy as a clinical assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapy. Proctor’s appointment is cofunded by UNC Hospitals, where she serves as a clinical oncology specialist in thoracic oncology.
Amanda Corbett
Amanda Corbett, Pharm.D., is an associate professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and the Global Pharmacology Coordinator for the UNC Institute of Global Health and Infectious Diseases. Her expertise are in HIV, antiviral, and opportunistic infection clinical pharmacy and ethnopharmacology. She has extensive experience in developing countries and more recently in integrative medicine practices.
Mackenzie Leigh Cottrell
Mackenzie Cottrell, Pharm.D., M.S. is an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. Her research focuses on describing pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic relationships in mucosal tissues for antiretrovirals being used in HIV prevention and cure interventions.
Daniel Crona
Daniel Crona, Pharm.D., Ph.D., joined the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in 2015. His translational research program focuses on how genetic variations can lead to differences in the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of therapeutic treatments used in oncology, and how inter-individual differences in clinical pharmacology measures can affect survival and drug toxicity phenotypes.
Julie Dumond
Julie Dumond, Pharm.D., M.S., is an associate professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. Her primary research interest is the pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics of antiretrovirals. She is currently conducting a clinical study in aging, HIV-infected subjects to explore the effects of cellular aging and frailty on antiretroviral toxicity and efficacy.
Robert Dupuis
Robert Dupuis, PharmD, FCCO, is a clinical professor and vice department chair within the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. Dr. Dupuis is also the division’s director of fellowship programs. In this role, he advises postdoctoral fellows on clinical research in the areas of regulatory affairs, medical affairs, clinical development, and pharmacometrics. Dr. Dupuis has expertise in clinical pharmacology, drug metabolism, drug disposition, pharmacogenomics, adverse effects, outcomes and enhancement of care.
Amber Frick
Amber Frick, Pharm.D., Ph.D., is an assistant professor with the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. Her main responsibilities at the School are to develop an expertise in the implementation and assessment of new approaches to and best practices in teaching while also taking part in collaborative teaching activities.
Dong Fu
Dong Fu, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. His research interests are liver cell biology and hepatic pharmacology, especially, the cellular processes and the mechanisms that are related to hepatocyte polarization, hepatic transporters trafficking, bile acid signaling, drug-induced mitochondrial and hepatocellular injury and lipids metabolism in hepatocytes.
Daniel Gonzalez
Daniel Gonzalez, Pharm.D., Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. His research interests include pediatric clinical pharmacology and the application of mathematical modeling and simulation techniques to characterize the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs, guide dosage selection, and improve drug safety in children.
Erin Heinzen
The Heinzen Lab focuses on the genetic and genomic basis of epilepsy disorders, including analyses of the role of germline mutations, somatic mutations, and how regulation of the cellular transcriptome influences the risk and presentation of seizures. In collaboration with a number of investigators in neurology, neuropathology, and neurosurgery, my group is to studies the role of somatic mutations in epilepsy and other neurological diseases.
Klarissa Dawniette Jackson
Klarissa Jackson joined the faculty at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy as an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. Jackson obtained her B.S. in chemistry from Jackson State University and her Ph.D. in pharmacology from Vanderbilt University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry under the mentorship of Drs. Allan Rettie and Sidney Nelson. Prior to joining the faculty at UNC, Jackson was as an assistant professor at Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University.
Angela Kashuba
Dr. Kashuba’s research focuses on the clinical pharmacology of drugs used in the treatment, prevention, and cure of HIV infection. She is working on optimizing dosing strategies for HIV prevention including the role of sex and ethnicity, characterizing drug distribution in putative viral reservoirs using mass spectrometry imaging, determining predictors of drug tissue distribution, and developing in vitro models for optimizing combination therapy for HIV cure.
Craig Lee
Craig Lee, Pharm.D, Ph.D. is a professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and the vice chair for research and graduate education in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. His research focuses on cytochrome P450 metabolism, cardiovascular experimental therapeutics, and precision medicine/pharmacogenomics.
Matthew Loop, Ph.D.
Matthew Loop, PhD, is an assistant professor within the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. He is a biostatistician who uses cutting-edge statistical models to understand data complexities. Dr. Loop has expertise in analyzing complex data sets related to human disease and population-level exposures.
Andrew Lucas
Dr. Lucas, Pharm.D., M.S. is an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and has been involved in cancer research for over 11 years, and translational/clinical studies of anti-cancer agents for greater than 7 years. His translational research program focuses on how functional variations in innate immunity can lead to differences in the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of therapeutic treatments with high inter-patient variability used in oncology (such as monoclonal antibodies or drug conjugates). In addition, he has been highly trained to perform the detailed analytical and pharmacology studies required for the translational development of targeted agents.
Merrie Mosedale
Merrie Mosedale, PhD, RAC, is research assistant professor within the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and the assistant director of the UNC Institute for Drug Safety Sciences. Dr. Mosedale has expertise in utilizing mouse genetics to identify individual susceptibilities to adverse drug reactions in humans, developing organotypic culture models to understand mechanisms of drug toxicities, and examining exosome biology to predict toxicity liabilities early in drug development.
Benyam Muluneh
Benyam Muluneh, Pharm.D., is an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. Muluneh coordinates a course in the integrative pharmacotherapy series and teaches in several PharmD courses. His research interests include optimization of pharmacotherapy in leukemias through the precision dosing initiative and a multidimensional approach to understanding and improving adherence to oral oncolytics. Muluneh also leads the school’s collaborations with Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia with a focus on hematology/oncology including serving as a GPS preceptor.
Herb Patterson
Herb Patterson, Pharm.D., is a professor and the chair of the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and a research professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His clinical research focuses on drugs used in heart failure.
Adam M Persky
Adam Persky is a professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. He teaches physiology and pharmacokinetics. His research focuses on translating the science of learning and memory into practical application in the classroom and experiential settings.
Gauri Rao
Gauri Rao, Pharm.D., M.S., is an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experiential Therapeutics. Rao’s principal research interests surround quantitative systems pharmacology, and she is working to understand the processes of infectious diseases.
Jo Ellen Rodgers
Jo Ellen Rodgers, Pharm.D., is a professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and serves as director of postdoctoral programs for the Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Rodgers’ primary research interest is in the care of heart failure patients.
Elias Rosen
Dr. Rosen’s research focuses on the development of methods to measure intracellular distribution of therapeutics and their metabolites in a variety of biological matrices using mass spectrometry imaging. He is currently quantifying the penetration of drugs relevant to HIV treatment and eradication into putative viral reservoirs, and combining this approach with traditional imaging modalities to evaluate efficacy of experimental treatment regimens.
Deborah Sturpe
Deborah Sturpe, PharmD, MA, BCPS is a clinical associate professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. Her primary responsibilities in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy include didactic teaching, ambulatory care practice, and investigating how to best teach and assess students. In particular, she is interested in PharmD curricular revision and curricular/program assessment planning as well as best practices in competency education and performance-based assessment. Dr. Sturpe also serves as Associate Editor for Manuscript Quality for the journal Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning.
Jacqueline B. Tiley
Jacqueline B. Tiley, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. Her research interests are disease- and drug-mediated alterations in transport of drugs and endogenous compounds and its impact on drug disposition and toxicity.
Michael Wagner
Paul B. Watkins
Paul Watkins, M.D., is director of the Institute for Drug Safety Sciences at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and the Howard Q. Ferguson Distinguished Professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics.
Dennis Williams
Dennis Williams, Pharm.D., is an associate professor and the vice chair for professional education and practice for the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics.
Tim Wiltshire
Tim Wiltshire, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and Director of the UNC Center for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy. The major focus of his laboratory and CPIT is to take the pharmacogenetic knowledge we already have and develop approaches for that information to be used effectively in clinical practice.
William Zamboni
William Zamboni, Pharm.D., Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is the director of UNC GLP Bioanalytical Facility and the director of the Translational Oncology and Nanoparticle Drug Development Initiative (TOND2I) Lab. His research interests focus on the application of pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, and pharmacogenetic principles in the optimization of the chemotherapeutic treatment of cancer.
DPET Joint Appointments
Lisa M. Tarantino
The research in Dr. Tarantino’s laboratory is focused on identification and characterization of genes that influence behavior. In particular, they study mouse models of addiction, anxiety, stress and depression-like behaviors.
DPET Research Faculty
DPET Adjunct Faculty
Kirkwood Adams, MD
Adams is an associate professor of medicine and radiology at the University of North Carolina. He specializes in heart failure, nuclear cardiology, cardiac transplantation, and general cardiology.
Hugh A. Barton, PhD
Barton currently works as a consultant for Barton Systems Pharmacology and Toxicology. His area of expertise includes translational modeling and stimulation, pharmacokinetics, and dynamics and metabolism.
Danny Benjamin, MD, PhD, MPH, Kiser-Arena Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics
Benjamin’s research group pioneered much of the methods in completing pharmacokinetic and safety trials in premature infants. His group has since expanded to the study of therapeutics in children of all ages and most therapeutic areas as evidenced by >300 publications in peer-reviewed journals.
William Brock, PhD
Brock has expertise and experience with non-clinical safety program study design, conduct, interpretation and reporting for a broad range of xenobiotics.
Gilbert Burckart, PharmD
Burkhart is the associate director of pediatrics in the office of clinical pharmacology at the US Food and Drug Administration.
Scott Clark, PhD
Clark, of SCSClark Networks, specializes in pharmacogenomics.
Michael Cohen-Wolkowiez, MD, PhD
Cohen-Wolkowiez is a professor of Pediatrics at Duke University. His areas of expertise include minimal-risk methods including bioanalytical, PK/PD modeling, and clinical trial design to advance pediatric drug development.
Austin Combest, PharmD, BCOP, MBA
Combest is the senior director of Clinical Science and Information for PPD’s Strategic Development Consulting group and head of the clinical science department at PPD. His therapeutic area of expertise is in hematology/oncology, with a strong background in immune-oncology, pharmacokinetics and pharmacology, pharmaceutics, nanoparticles, biologics, biosimilars, epidemiology, and pharmacogenomics. He has experience with all phases of drug development from preclinical to Phase IV.
Ronald Fleming, PharmD
Fleming’s research area is oncology and provides expertise in the pharmaceutical industry.
John Edgar French, PhD
French is involved in research collaborations with DPET in the area of toxicology, genetics, and nutrient impact on experimental therapies for cancer.
Giulia Ghibellini, PhD
Ghibellini is a director of clinical pharmacology at Teva Pharmaceuticals (Specialty Products) and the team leader for the Clinical Pharmacology group in the US. Her research expertise is in the fields of pharmacokinetics and clinical pharmacology.
Roberto Gomeni, PhD, HDR
Gomeni is the former global head of pharmacometrics for GlaxoSmithKline. His experience includes the development of novel pharmacometrics methodologies for improving efficiency of placebo-controlled clinical trials of antidepressant drugs, analyzing data of clinical trials, and for developing a disease progression model for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Alison H. Harrill, PhD
Harrill is a geneticist at the National Toxicology Program (NIH/NIEHS). Her area of research covers systems toxicology, pharmacogenetics and personalized medicine, and biomarkers.
Alan Higgins, PhD
Higgins, of Baskerville Consulting, is an expert in the field of preclinical drug development.
Howard L. McLeod, PharmD
McLeod’s research is focused on pharmacogenomics and individualized therapy. He is affiliated with Moffitt Cancer Center.
Alison A. Motsinger-Reif, PhD
Motsinger-Reif’s research at North Carolina State University is focused on pharmacogenetics and bioinformatics.
Jai Narendra Patel, PharmD
Patel is the chief of Pharmacology Research in the Department of Cancer Pharmacology and an associate professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Atrium Health’s Levine Cancer Institute. Patel oversees cancer pharmacology and pharmacogenomics research.
Nita Patel, PhD
Patel is a senior research advisor at Eli Lilly and Company. Dr. Patel has 20+ years of drug discovery and development experience optimizing compounds for drug metabolism/transporter interactions, pharmacokinetics and understanding PKPD relationships in pharmacology.
Kenneth Phares, PhD
Phares has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry, specifically in the areas of pre-formulation, formulation development, and bioanalytical method development.
Mathew T. Pletcher, PhD
Pletcher is the head of Rare Disease Discovery at Roche. His research is focused on genetics, pharmacogenomics, drug development, and genomic medicine.
Bob Powell, PharmD
Powell is a clinical pharmacologist who is interested in developing better dosing strategies in emerging markets with the goal of making drugs safer and more effective.
Virginia Schmith, PhD, FCP
Schmith provides expert consulting in clinical development and pharmacometric strategies for compounds from candidate selection through registration and beyond; development, implementation, and interpretation of strategies for PK/PD and modeling and simulation; participating in regulatory meetings; and evaluating the probability of successful differentiation from competitors.
Todd Schwartz, DrPH
Schwartz is an associate professor of biostatistics at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. His efforts are focused on supporting various research projects across Health Affairs at UNC with regard to their biostatistical aspects, including consultation on design, conduct, analysis, and dissemination.
Russell Thomas, PhD
Thomas is the director for the EPA’s National Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure. His research is focused on developing more efficient ways to evaluate the safety of chemicals.
Jian Wang, PhD, MSRS, FCP
Wang is an associate director for regulatory science in Office of New Drugs, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He has many years of working experience in drug development, clinical pharmacology, and regulatory science.
Daniel Weiner, PhD
Weiner is a private drug development consult and a part-time faculty with DPET. His expertise is in the field of pharmacometrics and pharmaceutical biostatistics.
Maciej Jan Zamek-Gilszczynski, PhD
Zamek-Gilszczynski is a senior fellow and director at GlaxoSmithKline. His research focuses on clinical drug development.
Darryl C. Zeldin, MD
Zeldin is the NIEHS Scientific Director and is responsible for one of the largest intramural research programs at the NIH with over 1000 scientists in 10 Departments and 15 Core Facilities, and an annual budget of over $130M. He is an internationally recognized expert on eicosanoids (lipid mediators) and their role in regulating cardiovascular function, and on environmental causes of asthma.
Zhiyang Zhao, PhD
Zhao is the chief scientific officer at Alliance Pharma. His area of research is pharmacokinetics and drug metabolism.
DPET Emeritus Faculty
James Heyward Hull
James Heyward Hull, Pharm.D., M.S., is a professor emeritus with the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics. He has expertise in design of clinical drug trials, optimization of study efficiency through better design & analysis strategies and techniques for analysis of concentration-response data.
Dhiren Thakker
Dhiren Thakker, Ph.D., is an emeritus professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He is also a researcher focusing on drug absorption and metabolism, as well as a start-up entrepreneur.
DPET Primary Staff
March 2021
- Dr. Klarissa Jackson along with Carla White and Suzie Harris was awarded a grant by Genentech, Inc. This grant is for their project titled “Well-Being Initiative for Woman Faculty of Color to Promote Professional Advancement in Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Research.” This award is in the amount of $386,895.25.
- Dr. Jo Ellen Rodgers has been appointed the Director of Postdoctoral Programs for the School of Pharmacy (effective March 1, 2021). In this role she will be responsible for overseeing the postdoctoral training for the school.
February 2021
- Dr. Benyam Muluneh has been selected as a KL2 Scholar with the TraCS KL2 Program starting on July 1, 2021.
- Dr. Merrie Mosedale has been awarded the 2021 Junior Faculty Development Award from the Provost’s Office for her proposal: “Development of High-Content Imaging Assays for In-Vitro Mouse Genetics Platform”.
- Dr. Merrie Mosedale passed the Regulatory Affairs Certification (RAC) Exam for Drugs in December 2020 and now holds the RAC Credential.
January 2021
- Dr. Benyam Muluneh’s perspective piece co-authored with Stacie Dusetzina, Nancy Keating and Haiden A. Huskamp “Broken Promises-How Medicare Part D has Failed to Deliver Savings to Older Adults” was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
- Dr. Kim Brouwer, Danny Gonzalez and team received a perfect impact score of 10 on their 2nd NICHD Pediatric Clinical Pharmacology T32 application.
- Dr. Mackenzie Cottrell and the UNC CFAR Pharmacology Core, along with the UNC CFAR received a perfect score on their competitive renewal. This is the first time ever a CFAR has received a score of 10.
December 2020
- Dr. Benyam Muluneh’s perspective piece co-authored with Stacie Dusetzina “Broken Promises — How Medicare Part D Has Failed to Deliver Savings to Older Adults” was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
November 2020
- Dr. Herb Patterson received the ACCP Cardiology Practice & Research Network (PRN) Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes a PRN member who has consistently contributed “above and beyond” to the PRN, to cardiovascular pharmacotherapy, and to the advancement of cardiovascular clinical pharmacy practice during their career.
October 2020
- Dr. Gauri Rao received a 2 year DoD grant of $1,888,916 for “Novel Antimicrobial Hybrid Hydrogel Dressing Targeting Wound Infections Caused by Superbugs Resistant to All Current Antibiotics.”
- Dr. Jacqueline Bezençon received a $165,167 grant to investigate the “Effect of Overt Type 2 Diabetes and Metformin Treatment on Placental Transport Proteins” in humans funded by an administrative supplement to Kim Boggess’ NICHD R01 grant.
September 2020
- Dr. Julie Dumond received a NIH Award for the project “Quantifying Sex-and-Age-Related Differences in Antiretroviral Exposure and Adverse Effects in the MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study” for the amount of $567,218.
August 2020
- Dr. Carter Cao received a UNC Lineberger Innovation Award for the project “ Measuring CAR T cell–tumor cell interactions in vivo to overcome resistance to CAR-T therapy in solid tumors” for the amount of $150,000 over 2 years.
July 2020
- Dr. Erin Heinzen was awarded a RO1 grant titled “Defining disease mechanisms in SLC35A2 epilepsy” in the amount of $732,007.
- Dr. Craig Lee received funding from NHLBI/NIH for a Multiple PI RO1 grant with Larisa Cavallari (University of Florida) titled “Precision Antiplatelet Therapy after Percutaneous Coronary Intervention.” Total funding is $3.5M over 5 years ($1.25M to UNC).
- Dr. Kim Brouwer received funding for the NIGMS T32 Administrative supplement to Enhance Program Evaluation Capacity grant.
June 2020
- Dr. Gauri Rao is the recipient of the Friends Fighting Cystic Fibrosis award of $30,000 through the UNC School of Medicine.
May 2020
- Dr. Craig Lee received funding for an RO1 grant “Mechanisms of Altered Hepatic Drug Metabolism and Transport in Pregnancy” from NICHD/NIH, with total funding of $1,643,385 over 4 years.
- Dr. Federico Innocenti was awarded a $200k Alliance Special Projects Allocation Award for a proposal entitled “Machine learning prognostic and predictive analyses for metastatic colorectal cancer – C80405.”
- Dr. Amber Cipriani has been named as a one of the 2020 Experiential Precepting Stars for UNC Medical Center and UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
March 2020
- Dr. Craig Lee, Dr. Alexis Williams (2nd year fellow), and Dr. Rick Stouffer published “Frequency and clinical outcomes of CYP2C19genotype-guided escalation and de-escalation of antiplatelet therapy in a real-world clinical setting” in the January issue of Genetics in Medicine. The Genomic Medicine Working Group of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NIH/NHGRI) highlighted this paper as one of the top 10 advances in genomic medicine in 2019.
- Dr. Klarissa Jackson’s $50k “Phenotypic Biomarkers of Cytochrome P450 3A for Precision Dosing in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia” grant has been chosen for funding by NC TraCS.
January 2020
- Dr. Andrew Lucas received the 2020 Junior Faculty Development Award for $10,000 from the UNC Committtee on Faculty Research and Scholarly Leaves.
- Drs. Gauri Rao was awarded the PharmAlliance Grant (MONASH-UNC) of $50,000: Big data approach analyzing clinical and genomic data combined with in vitro pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modelling: towards precision therapy for life-threatening infections.
- Dr. Merrie Mosedale was presented with the 2020 ASPET Early Career Award.
November 2019
- Dr. Kim Brouwer was invited to present in the opening session of the NASH and Cholestatic Liver Disease Meeting that the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy is jointly organizing with the U.S. FDA.
October 2019
- Dr. Angela Kashuba will be receiving one of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics’ most prestigious awards, the Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award. She will be acknowledged during the 2020 ASCPT Annual Meeting in Houston, TX.
- Dr. Dennis Williams received the APhA Foundation’s Bowl of Hygeia Award during the NCAP Convention this past week. This annual award is given in each state for a pharmacist based on their contributions to the profession and community.
- Dr. Benyam Muluneh had a paper selected for a Journal of Oncology Pharmacy Practice (JOPP) Best Paper Award in the Research Article category. The article is entitled, “Patient Perspectives on the Barriers Associated with Medication Adherence to Oral Chemotherapy” and was published in the March 2018 issue of the JOPP.
- Dr. Jo Ellen Rodgers was selected to participate in an American College of Cardiology – Heart House Roundtable called the Cardio-Oncology: Risk Assessment & Management Strategies Roundtable.
September 2019
- Dr. Julie Dumond has received another NIH R21 from the National Institute of Aging. Her project is titled “Interaction of Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor Pharmacology and Aging in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study.”
- Dr. Bill Zamboni has received a C-CCNE Pilot Grant for his proposal “Modulation of Tumor Fibroblasts by MRX-2843 to Increase the Tumor Delivery and Efficacy of Nanoparticles in In Vivo and In Vitro 3D Tumor Models.”
- Dr. Carter Cao had a program proposal titled “Overcoming Tumor Resistance in Cancer Therapy: Applying Evolutionary Principles from Bench to Bedside” accepted at the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) 2020 Annual Meeting, March 18-21, 2020.
August 2019
- Dr. Gauri Rao has received an NIH R01 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Her project is titled “Pharmacology of intrathecal/intraventricular polymyxins: A systems-based approach.”
- Dr. Gauri Rao has received a Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) supplement award for a project entitled, “The Relationship between Pyrazinamide Pharmacokinetics, Tuberculosis Disease, and Host Immune Responses.”
- Dr. Craig Lee has been selected to participate as an author on the CYP2C19/clopidogrel Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium (CPIC) guideline update.
- Dr. Dan Crona and Mackenzie Cottrell have both received NIH Loan Repayment Programs Awards. This award is designed to recruit and retain highly qualified health professionals into biomedical or biobehavioral research careers.
June 2019
- Dr. Kim Brouwer was distinguished as Inventor of the Year during the 2019 UNC Celebration of Inventorship. The UNC Office of Technology Commercialization presents the Inventor of the Year Award to a UNC-Chapel Hill innovator in recognition of their contributions to inventions and patents. The award honors the recipient’s commitment to the University’s culture of encouraging innovation, disseminating knowledge, and promoting entrepreneurship.
- Dr. Dan Crona has received a Translational Tier 2 Eshelman Institute for Innovation Award for his project entitled, “Chemically catalyzed epigenetic gene regulation in prostate cancer.”
- Dr. Merrie Mosedale has received an NIH R21 from the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs and is entitled, “Development of an in vitro mouse genetic reference platform to improve preclinical drug safety assessment.” The goal of the research is to evaluate the utility of an in vitro platform developed from the Collaborative Cross mouse population to improve preclinical safety assessment and identify interspecies differences in drug toxicity between animals and humans.
- Dr. Rachel Church won the best poster award at the AASLD-FDA Drug-Induced Liver Injury Conference for the most outstanding DILI poster.
May 2019
- Dr. Jo Ellen Rodgers has been selected to be a member of the American Heart Association, Cardio-Oncology Science Subcommittee.
April 2019
- Dr. Dan Crona has received a HOPA Early Career Research Grant for his project entitled: “Precision Dosing of TKIs for Real World Patients with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia”. The HOPA Early Career Research Grant (ECR) provides funding to promising investigators early in their career to encourage and promote quality basic and pre-clinical translational lab-based research in oncology.
- Dr. Amanda Corbett has been selected to participate in the Mary Frances Picciano Dietary Supplement Research Practicum through the Office of Dietary Supplements. This intensive practicum will provide a thorough overview and grounding about issues, concepts, unknowns, and controversies about dietary supplements and supplement ingredients. It will also emphasize the importance of scientific investigations to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and value of these products for health promotion and disease prevention as well as how to carry out this type of research.
- Dr. Mackenzie Cottrell has received a 12 on her R21 NIH/NIAID grant application. The title of the submitted grant is “Feminizing Sex Hormones Impact on PrEP Pharmacology in Transgender Women”.
- Dr. Paavo Honkakoski, a global expert on nuclear receptors, has returned to the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy as a recipient of the Nannerl O. Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professorship in 2019-20. Honkakoski is a professor of Biopharmacy at the School of Pharmacy and Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland. DPET is serving as the sponsoring unit for Prof. Honkakoski’s visit.
February 2019
- Dr. Federico Innocenti has received supplemental funding from the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology Foundation in support of his work associated with Alliance protocol CALGB 80802, “A Phase III Randomized Study of Sorafenib plus Doxorubicin versus Sorafenib in Patients with Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) – CALGB 80802 and Correlative Substudy – CALGB 150902.”
January 2019
- Dr. Dan Crona received a Junior Faculty Development Award. His project is entitled, “Evaluation of combined PARP and BET inhibition in preclinical models of urothelial bladder cancer.”
Kim Brouwer
- UNC-Duke-Hamner Collaborative Clinical Pharmacology Postdoctoral Training Program (2-T32-GM086330-06)
NIGMS, 7/1/2011-6/30/2021 - Mechanisms of Altered Hepatic Transport: Impact on Drug Therapy (R35 GM122576-01)
NIGMS, 04/05/2017-03/31/2022
Yanguang Cao
- Optimizing antibody-based therapy through a system platform of pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and immunodynamics (1-R35-GM119661-01)
NIGMS, 8/1/2016-5/31/2021
Julie Dumond
- Interaction of Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor Pharmacology and Aging in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (1R21AG063660-01A1)
National Institute on Aging (NIA), 8/15/2019-4/30/2021 - Quantifying Sex-and-Age-Related Differences in Antiretroviral Exposure and Adverse Effects in the MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study (1-R56-AI153007-01)
NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), 9/1/20-8/31/21
Daniel Gonzalez
- Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling to Guide Drug Dosing in Children with Obesity (5R01HD096435-02)
NIH/NCICHD, 8/1/2019-7/31/2023 - Application of Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK) Modeling to Understand Drug Disposition in Children with Obesity
American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education (AFPE), 9/1/2020-8/31/2021
Erin Heinzen
- Identification and molecular characterization of somatic mutations in MCD
NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), 9/30/2016-6/30/2021 - Defining disease mechanisms in SLC35A2 epilepsy
NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), 7/1/2020-4/30/2025 - Somatic Mutation in Intractible Focal Epilepsy 3(GG015295-01)
NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), 8/15/20-7/31/25
Craig Lee
- Mechanisms of Altered Hepatic Drug Metabolism and Transport in Pregnancy (1R01HD098742-01) NICHD/NIH, 04/01/2020 – 03/31/2024
- Precision antiplatelet therapy after percutaneous coronary intervention
NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), 7/16/2020-6/30/2025
Merrie Mosedale
- Development of an In Vitro Mouse Genetic Reference Platform to Improve Preclinical Drug Safety Assessment (1R21OD028216-01)
NIH, 8/15/2019-7/31/2021 - Exploring the Utility of Exosomes to Predict and Understand Idiosyncratic Drug-Induced Liver Injury (IDILI)
Janssen Research & Development, LCC, 4/24/2019-10/23/2021 - Development of an In Vitro Platform for the Evaluation of Genetic Susceptibility Factors Associated with Adverse Drug Response
Burroughs Wellcome Fund, 9/1/2017-8/31/2022
Gauri Rao
- Pharmacology of Intrathecal/Intraventricular Polymyxins: A Systems-Based Approach (1R01AI146241-01)
NIAID, 7/8/2019-6/30/2024 - Novel Antimicrobial Hybrid Hydrogel Dressing Targeting Wound Infections Caused by Superbugs Resistant to All Current Antibiotics
Department of Defense – Combat Readiness Medical Research Program, 9/1/2020-8/31/2022 - Combating Deadly Gram-negative Lung Infections: An Inhalation and Systems Approach
NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), 8/1/18-7/31/2021
Paul Watkins
- Coordinating Center for Drug Induced Liver Injury Network (DILIN)
NIH National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases (NIDDKD), 8/21/2018-6/3/2023
Tim Wiltshire
- Genetic Etiology of Cancer Drug Response(5R01CA161608-07)
NCI, 03/01/2012-03/31/2022
William Zamboni
- ChemoGLO TASK 4 – Comparison of Doxorubin Measurements on Surfaces by HDCheck Compared with LC-MS/MS
ChemoGLO, LLC, 2/1/19-1/31/2022
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Stephen Balevic
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Jessica Beers
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Aaron Devanathan
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Meethila Gade
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Estefany Garcia
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Jacqueline Gerhart
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Ricardo Gonzalez
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Patrick Hanafin
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Mattie Hartauer
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Spinel Karas
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Adrian Khoei
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Talisa Kinsale
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Abigail Klein
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Bethany Latham
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Kaitlyn Maffuid
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Patty Maglalang
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Sean McCann
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William Murphy, Jr
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Timothy Qi
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Shekhar Bhaskar Yeshwante
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Jiawei Zhou
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Daisy Zhu