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 (our funding has doubled in 5 years).
The UIC College of Pharmacy was ranked 3rd in overall sponsored research funding for NIH FY2010 and 7th in NIH funding (with prime plus subcontract awards included) 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 Funded
ITR's Dr. Scott Franzblau received an NIH R21 award for his project “In-Vitro Detection of Anti-TB Liver Metabolites in Early Drug Discovery”, with the starting date of 2/15/2012.
ITR Research Professor Dr. Larry Klein received an NIH R21 award for his project “Novel Indigoid Anti-Tuberculosis Agents”, with the starting date of 2/15/2012.
ITR Research Assistant Professor Dr. Birgit Jaki received an NIH R21 award for her project “Development of a transformative approach to the rapid detection, isolation, and identification of anti-tuberculosis natural products”, with the starting date of 2/15/2012.
College of Pharmacy investigators were successful in obtaining funding in the inaugural series of the OVCR Areas of Excellence Awards. A group of Pharmacy Practice investigators, Dr. Julio Duarte, Dr. Larisa Cavallari, Dr. Jeffry Bishop and Dr. Monsheel Sodhi received a Phase 1 award for their project “Feasibility of an NIH Pharmacogenomics Research Network”. MCP's Dr. Gregory Thatcher and Dr. Pavel Petukhov are PIs on Phase 2 projects, “Development of novel inhibitors of PBEF/NAMPT to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension” and “Anti-hepatitis B virus (HBV) compounds targeting host factors”, respectively.
Dr. Hyun-Young Jeong received “Just In Time” award from UIC CCTS for her project entitled “Induction of CYP2D6 Expression During Pregnancy”.
Drs. Guido Pauli and Brent Friesen received a patent for “Selection & Rational Development of Solvent Systems in Counter-Current Chromatography”.
Dr. Gregory Thatcher received a five year R01 funding from NIH National Cancer Institute for his project entitled “Biointeractions of Antiestrogens with Nitric Oxide”.
Dr. Larisa Cavallari received a subcontract from University of Chicago for National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute-funded project entitled “Comprehensive Studies of Novel SNPs Affecting Warfarin Dose in African Americans”.
Dr. Hyunwoo Lee received a NIH R56 Bridge Award from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for his project “Peptide-Based Quorum Sensing Controlling Virulence in Bacillus anthracis”.
Drs. Stephanie Crawford (PI), James Shaw, Daniel Touchette and Lisa Sharp (College of Medicine) received funding of $310,000 from the Pharmacy Quality Alliance, Inc. (PQA) for the first known empirical study to evaluate face-to-face and telephonic medication therapy management (MTM) interventions in community-based settings. Study partners include UIC, SUPERVALU (Jewel-Osco) Pharmacies. Competitive Health Analytics (CHA, Inc., subsidiary of Humana), and HumanaRxMentor -- which is also providing in-kind support for project activities.
Dr. Maria Barbolina received a NIH R21 grant from National Cancer Institute. Her project, entitled “Role of the Fractaline Signaling in EOC”, started on 8/1/11 and runs for two years.
Dr. Michael Federle received a NIH R01 grant from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. His project, entitled “Mechanistic Dissection of Pheromone-Dependent Regulation of Group A Streptococcal Virulence”, started on 7/1/11 and runs for five years.
Dr. Douglas Thomas received a NIH R01 grant from National Institute of General Medical Sciences. His 4 year project starts on 7/1/11 and is entitled “ The Role of Dinitrosyliron Complexes in Cancer Etiology”.
Congratulations to our trainees
Pharmacognosy student Chaitanya Aggarwal (Federle Lab) has been named 2012 Chicago Biomedical Consortium Scholar. He is one of the three incoming CBC Scholars representing UIC. This honor comes with a grant of $5,000/year for up to two years to be used for academically related purposes such as travel to conferences.
Pharmacognosy student Rene Ramos (Pauli Lab) is the recipient of the Chicago Consular Corps Scholarship for the academic year 2011-2012. He received this award ($1,000) at a banquet with numerous Chicago-based Consuls from the hands of the Consular of his home country, El Salvador.
Pharmacognosy students Chaitanya Aggarwal (Federle Lab), Pulkit Gupta (Mankin Lab) and BPS student Yang Yang (Hong Lab) received the Chancellor's Graduate Research Fellowships for the Fall 2011. BPS student Ryan Pearson (Hong Lab) is Fall 2011 Provost and Deiss Award for Graduate Research recipient. More details.
BPS student Ja Hye Myung and her mentor, Dr. Seungpyo Hong, had their paper “Dendrimer-Mediated Multivalent Binding for the Enhanced Capture of Tumor Cells” published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition that is considered one of the highest impact journals in the broad area of chemistry - the ISI impact factor is 12.7. Their paper has also been selected as a "Hot Paper" by the journal. The paper has been highlighted in the Faculty of 1000 by Don Tomalia who is the inventor of dendrimers.
Dr. Kwihye Koh, a postdoc in Dr. Young Jeong's lab (BPS/PP), won 3rd place in postdoctoral poster competition at the International Society of Studies of Xenobiotics Annual Meeting. Her poster was entitled 17β-Estradiol (E2) enhances cytochrome P450 (CYP) 2B6 expression via cooperative actions of estrogen receptor (ER) and constitutive androstane receptor (CAR).
BPS student Dirim Arslan (Beck Lab) received Scholar-in-Training Award in the amount of $1000 to support his attendance at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, being held November 12-16, 2011 in San Francisco, CA. He was chosen for this honor because his abstract was highly rated by the Scientific Committee and by the Scientific Committee Co-Chairpersons.
BPS student Bethany Perez White (Tonetti Lab) won the first place in the 2011 meeting of the Great Lakes Chapter of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics poster competition.
BPS student Ryan Pearson (Hong Lab) received Pre-Doctoral Fellowship in the Pharmaceutical Sciences from American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education (AFPE). The receipt of an AFPE Pre-Doctoral Fellowship in national competition is a great honor and comes with Fellowship stipend, certificate, and a lapel pin.