Research

Research News

Facts and Figures

For the past 5+ years, American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy has consistently ranked the UIC College of Pharmacy within the top 5 (out of 120 surveyed) colleges of pharmacy in the nation, when measured by sponsored research funding. As can be seen in the chart on the right, National Institutes of Health provide the most external funds, with other major contributors being Department of Defense, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Science Foundation, and American Cancer Society.

In fiscal year 2012, total research sponsored program expenditures in the College were close to $20M, which places the College among the top 5 colleges (out of 21 ranked ) within the University of Ilinois at Chicago, for the 5th year in a row. Out of the 152 UIC departments included in the FY2012 research expenditures report, half of the College departments ranked within the first 30 with regard to research expenditures. The department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy was rated as number 5 within UIC. For more details, visit Grants&Contracts website.

Newly Honored

Dr. Alexander Mankin has been selected as 2013 recipient of the AACP Paul R. Dawson Biotechnology Award. The intent of the award is to recognize annually an active scientist as one of the leaders in the contemporary teaching of and scholarship in biotechnology and its related science. Read more here.

Dr. Seungpyo Hong received the Rising Star 2012 Researcher of the Year award from UIC OVCR. The Rising Star award is given to 5 UIC early career researchers who have demonstrated outstanding promise to become future leaders in their area of expertise.

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

Co-PIs Dr. Alexander Mankin and Dr. Nora Vazquez-Laslop received a four year R01 grant from the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences for their project “Molecular Mechanisms of Action of Macrolide Antibiotics”, with a start date of 4/1/13.

Dr. Sang Hyun Cho received funding from Myongji University for project titled “TB Drug Discovery from Actinomycetes”.

Dr. Edith Nutescu obtained funding from The Cranberry Institute for her project “Evaluation of Cranberries and Warfarin Interaction”.

Dr. Hyunyoung Jeong is a subcontract co-investigator on a NIH funded project “Design and Synthesis of Nonpeptide Protease Inhibitors”.

Dr. Alexander Mankin and his Co-PI Dr. Nora Vazquez-Laslop received a three year grant from National Science Foundation for a project “Specific Interactions of the Ribosome with the Nascent Peptide”.

Faculty from the CPR were recently awarded a subcontract to perform work on FDA-funded Mini-Sentinel Program. Mini-Sentinel is a component of the larger Sentinel Initiative which seeks to create a national, integrated, electronic system for monitoring medical product safety. Led by Glen Schumock, the UIC project seeks to understand opportunities to use alternative, more efficient methods for validating algorithms designed to identify patients with health outcomes of interest.

Dr. Edith Nutescu received funding from the NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for her 4 year project “Patient-Centered Anticoagulation Self-Monitoring in Minority Patients”.

Dr. Maria Barbolina is a recipient of the 2013 Liz Tilberis Grant from the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. Her three year project investigates “Chemokine-Dependent Control of Survival in Ovarian Carcinoma” and started on Feb 1, 2013.

Dr. Surrey Walton is a subcontract PI on a NIH funded project “Methodological Development for Cost Effectiveness Assessment of CPHHD Projects”.

Dr. Richard van Breemen received T32 training grant from NIH NCCAM. This first COP training grant, titled “Research Training in Natural Product Complementary and Alternative Medicine” runs for four years and “will support the education of the next generation of scientists who will be responsible for establishing the safety and efficacy of dietary supplements and for the discovery of new therapeutic agents from natural product sources”. Read more.

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.

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. 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.

Congratulations to our trainees

BPS student Yang Yang (Hong Lab) won 2nd place in the 2013 UIC Student Research Forum Poster Competition.

Congratulations to BPS student Ryan Pearson (Hong Lab) and CPB student Chaitanya Aggarwal (Federle Lab) who both received the 2013 Dean's Scholar Award. The Dean's Scholar Award is a one-year, non-renewable award presented by the Dean of the Graduate College in recognition of a student's scholarly achievement. The award is intended to provide the most distinguished, advanced-level graduate students with a period of time dedicated solely to the completion of their programs and comes with $25,000 fellowship stipend.