Research

Research News

Facts and Figures

Our researchers are increasingly productive, as can be seen in the figure on the right. College of Pharmacy sponsored research programs reached $30 million in Fiscal Year 2010.

The UIC College of Pharmacy was ranked 4th in overall sponsored research funding for NIH FY2011 by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, out of 73 research-intensive colleges of pharmacy in the national survey.

For FY2011, total research sponsored program expenditures in the College were over $21M, with increase of 3% from FY2010. This places the College as number 4 among the top colleges within the University of Ilinois at Chicago, for the 3rd year in a row. The primary source of research expenditures in the College are federal grants, which represent 85% of the funding, with top agencies being National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and National Science Foundation. Out of the 156 UIC departments included in the FY2011 research expenditures report, most of the College departments ranked within the first 50 with regard to research expenditures. The department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy was rated as number 5 within UIC, up from the 6th place in FY2010. For more details, visit Grants&Contracts website.

Newly Honored

Dr. William Beck has been appointed as 2012 UIC Distinguished Professor, one of the three honored by the UIC this year. The Distinguished Professorship is created to recognize persons who have made a significant impact upon their field through scholarship, creativity, and leadership. Previous recipients are listed here. He was recognized at the Faculty Awards Celebration on 10/11/2012.

Dr. Seungpyo Hong has been selected as the recipient of the 2012 New Investigator Grant Award in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technologies from AAPS. He was recognized during the Awards Ceremony on 10/14/12 and presented with $25,000 monetary award.

Newly Funded

Two COP research teams received OTM Fall 2012 Proof of Concept Gap Funding Awards. Seungpyo Hong for his project “Development of a Biomimetic Device Prototype for Detection of Circulating Tumor Cells”; Gregory Thatcher and Debra Tonetti for their project “Therapies Associated With Modulation and Mimicry of Hormone Actions”.

Dr. Alexander Mankin received subcontract from Yale University for his project “Interoperable Robust Orthogonal Translation System”.

Dr. Eljim Tesoro received funds from VA Commonwealth University for project “Sodium Management in Patients with Acute Neurological Injury”.

Dr. Alexander Mankin and his Co-investigator Dr. Nora Vazquez-Laslop received four year R01 grant from the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences for project entitled “Programmed Translation Arrest Controlled by Nascent Peptides and Antibiotics”, with starting date of 9/30/12.

Dr. Brian Murphy obtained funding from American Cancer Society (IL Division) for his project “Use of Marine Bacteria to Overcome Drug Resistant Ovarian Cancer”, starting 8/31/12.

Dr. Zhihui Qin (Bolton Lab) received a three year DOD Prostate Cancer Idea Development Award for project “Targeting Prostate Cancer Cells by Combined Oxidative Stress Induction and Androgen Receptor Antagonism”. The award started August 1, 2012.

Dr. Hyunwoo Lee received a four year R01 grant from NIH NIAID for project “Peptide Based Quorum Sensing Controlling Virulence in Bacillus anthracis”. This award starts September 1, 2012.

Dr. Joanna Burdette received American Cancer Society grant for project “AKT Transformation of Ovarian and Fallopian Cells”. This 4 year award started on July 1, 2012.

Four COP investigators successfully competed for Cancer Center 2012 Translational Cancer Research Pilot Projects. Dr. Seungpyo Hong will work on his project “An Integrated Platform for Detection and Analysis of Invasive Breast CTCs”; Dr. Xiaolong He received funding to study “The role of ESRP1 in human ovarian cancer”; and Dr. Les Hanakahi with Dr. Karol Bruzik secured funding for their collaborative project “Inositol polyphosphate in DNA double-strand break repair - a novel target for radiosensitizers”. Their projects will run 9/1/12-8/31/13.

Dr. Brian Murphy obtained new DOD funding for his project “A co-culture based approach toward the induction and isolation of small molecule drug-leads active against Gram-negative HHS-Select Agents”, starting 6/15/12.

Dr. Shura Mankin received R03 grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for his project entitled “Inhibitors of Bacterial Protein Sythesis with Novel Modes of Action”, with starting date of 7/15/12.

Dr. Hayat Onyuksel was awarded the UIC OTM Proof of Concept Gap Funding for her project entitled “A Novel Targeted siRNA Nanomedicine against Liver Fibrosis”.

Dr. Joanna Burdette received two year funding from the US Department of Defense for her project entitled “Three-Dimensional Ovarian and Oviductal Culture to Enhance Transgenic Animal Studies of Cancer and Prevention”, with starting date of 9/30/12.

Two COP research teams secured pilot funding in the form of Chancellor's Discovery Fund Award. Dr. Rick Gemeinhart is one of the investigators on a proposal entitled “Dual functional polymeric particles combining photodynamic therapy with chemotherapy for the Treatment of Glioblastoma Multiforme”. Dr. Seungpyo Hong and Dr. Joanna Burdette secured funding for their collaborative work on “Ovarian cancer prevention and therapy using polymeric nanocarriers targeting follicle stimulating hormone and Mullerian inhibiting substance”.

Pharmacy Practice's Dr. Jeremy Johnson received American Cancer Society grant for project “Prostate Cancer Chemoprevention with Carnosol by Dual Disruption of AR/ER”. This 4 year award starts on July 1, 2012.

Biopharmaceutical Sciences' Dr. Xiaolong He received one year award from American Cancer Society, Illinois division. His project “Functional Significance of CDC42 Alternative Splicing in Ovarian Cancer” starts on June 1, 2012.

Congratulations to our trainees

MCP student Pin-Chih Su (Johnson Lab) received pre-doctoral fellowship from American Heart Association for “Development of a Novel Scaffold Antibiotic for Endocarditis Targeting Bacterial Enoyl Reductase (FabI) ”. His project starts on January 1, 2013.

Five COP students received 2012 Fall Chancellor's Graduate Research Fellowship. From BPS, Jamie Rayahin and Jason Buhrman, both from Gemeinhart lab. From MCP, the awards went to Tristesse Jones, Aditya Vaidya, and Divya Vasudevan from, respectively, Che lab, Petukhov lab, and Thomas lab.

MCP student Lawren VandeVrede (Thatcher Lab) received Honorable Mention in the 2013 College of Medicine Research Day Poster Competition in Graduate Student Category.

Pharmacognosy student Jordan Gunn (Che Lab) received F31 pre-doctoral fellowship from NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to study “The Biology and Chemistry of Traditionally Used Anti-Diabetic Botanical Drugs”. His project starts on January 1, 2013.

BPS student Ying He (Wang Lab) was one of the 4 winners of the UIC Graduate College 2012 Outstanding Thesis Award for her work “Epigenetic and post-translational mechanisms in pain: microRNA and phosphorylation”.

MCP student Skylar Carlson (Murphy Lab) won first place in poster competition at the ASP sponsored 2012 David J. Slatkin Symposium for her presentation “A Co-Culture Based Approach toward the Induction of Antibiotics to Combat Biodefense Pathogens”. Dr. Xiaomei Wei (Murphy Lab) won second place.

2 BPS students, Yang Yang (Hong Lab) and Mary Ellen Molloy (Tonetti Lab) received Fall 2012 Provost and Deiss Award for Graduate Research. More details.