Category: PCEUT News

Department of Pharmaceutics Postdoctoral Scholar Tim Tsang has been named to the University of Washington’s 2026 Husky 100, an annual recognition honoring 100 undergraduate, graduate and professional students from across the UW Bothell, Seattle and Tacoma campuses who are making the most of their time at the University.

The Husky 100 recognizes students who demonstrate a strong commitment to learning, leadership and community engagement. For Tsang, those qualities have been shaped by a journey marked by resilience, service and a deep commitment to science that can improve people’s lives.

Tsang left Hong Kong as a teenager and began community college at age 15—an experience that taught him how to adapt, stay steady and keep moving forward, even in moments of uncertainty. When he began his Ph.D. studies at UW during the COVID-19 pandemic, he volunteered at vaccination clinics, driven by a desire to connect his work to the needs of patients and the broader community.

That commitment continues to guide his work in the lab. Tsang has developed a primary human kidney cell model to study how inflammatory mediators and pregnancy hormones regulate renal drug transporters—research that could help advance understanding of how medicines move through the body in complex physiological states.

Along the way, Tsang has also embraced mentorship and community as central parts of his UW experience.

“The UW taught me that independence doesn’t mean isolation,” Tsang wrote in his Husky 100 application. “I try to lead by investing in people through mentorship, trust and showing up when it matters.”

Tsang’s selection reflects not only his academic and research accomplishments, but also the sense of purpose, generosity and leadership he brings to the School of Pharmacy community. His recognition as part of the 2026 Husky 100 celebrates a student making meaningful contributions in the lab, across campus and beyond.

Melissa Barker-Haliski’s work at the UW School of Pharmacy is exploring whether emerging gene therapy approaches for DRPLA could help reduce seizures and improve daily life for patients and families.

For families living with dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy, or DRPLA, so much of life can be shaped by uncertainty.

The ultra-rare inherited disorder progressively worsens movement, coordination, cognition and mood. In some patients — especially children — it also brings treatment-resistant seizures, adding disruption and fear to lives already marked by a difficult diagnosis.

At the University of Washington School of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutics and Plein Center Associate Professor Melissa Barker-Haliski is part of a growing global effort to better understand whether emerging gene therapy approaches for DRPLA could help address one of the disease’s most difficult and visible symptoms: seizures.

What first started as an effort by the Cure DRPLA Foundation to produce a good preclinical model of DRPLA to understand why the disease occurs has transitioned into an international effort to modify the burden of seizures in DRPLA. Dr. Barker-Haliski’s lab is now building on their earlier work to more closely understand seizure susceptibility and progression in DRPLA. Her lab wants to ask an important question: if a gene therapy can target the disease processes itself, might it also lessen some of the symptoms that most affect everyday life?

“Epilepsy is a spectrum,” said Barker-Haliski. “Many different causes lead to seizures, but oftentimes these causes require tailored treatments to get the symptoms under control. Every case of epilepsy is an opportunity to integrate precision medicine practices for optimal management. Through this project, my lab is diving deeper into defining the biological underpinnings of seizure susceptibility in DRPLA to know whether use of a new gene therapy can modify seizure and epilepsy-related symptoms of DRPLA.”

The work comes at a time of growing momentum in the field. Gene therapies are on the horizon for several different ultra-rare epilepsies and DRPLA is no exception. An investigational gene therapy for DRPLA is already being tested in a single-patient clinical trial, and researchers are continuing to build the evidence needed to understand how similar approaches may affect genetic causes of epilepsy more broadly.

Barker-Haliski’s research, supported by the American Epilepsy Society and Cure DRPLA, was showcased at the American Epilepsy Society’s annual meeting in December 2025 and at the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics’ annual meeting in May 2026. Now, a new NIH-supported collaboration with the Korecka lab at Harvard is helping to deepen that work, with researchers examining the disease-modifying potential of gene therapies and the cellular changes that may follow treatment in human patient-derived reprogrammed neurons.

“Our new NINDS grant hopes to demonstrate that seizure susceptibility can be minimized with this gene therapy,” Barker-Haliski said. “We are collaborating with the Korecka lab to use isolated patient skin cells that have been reprogrammed into neurons to investigate how cellular changes affect the likelihood that brain cells will be more hyperexcitable and thus prone to seizures and epilepsy. We hope that this work will uncover new therapeutic opportunities for people with DRPLA to better manage their seizure symptoms and long-term prognosis.”

Rare-disease research often moves step by step: carefully, collaboratively, and with patience. But each step can matter. Each finding adds to a fuller understanding of the disease and of what future treatment might look like.

For people living with DRPLA and for the families who care for them, that work is about more than scientific progress alone. It is about the possibility of a life with fewer seizures, greater stability and, over time, a clearer path forward.

At the UW School of Pharmacy, Shijie Cao leads the PRIME Lab (Pharmaceutical Research in Immune & Microbiome Engineering Laboratory), who are studying how signals from the gut microbiome shape human health—and how that knowledge could help guide better treatments for chronic inflammatory disease.

Deep in the gut, trillions of bacteria are carrying out work essential to human health. They help break down food, support the body’s defenses and send signals that scientists are still only beginning to understand. Invisible as they are, these microbial communities may influence far more than digestion. They may also shape inflammation, immunity and the body’s ability to stay in balance.

For Shijie Cao, Ph.D., that hidden world is a place of both mystery and possibility.

Cao, an assistant professor in the University of Washington School of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmaceutics, studies the gut microbiome and the compounds it produces. His lab is working to better understand how those microbial signals affect health—and how that knowledge could one day help researchers design therapies that are more precise, more durable and easier for patients to live with.

That work recently received a major boost through a National Science Foundation CAREER award, Developing Synthetic Microbiome Mimics to Study Microbe-Host Interactions. Through the award, Cao’s team is developing novel bio-mimics designed to recreate key signals normally produced by beneficial gut bacteria, allowing researchers to study how microbial components influence immune responses and intestinal health in more precise and controlled ways.

A MORE PRECISE WAY TO STUDY A COMPLEX SYSTEM

One of the central challenges in microbiome research is complexity. Scientists know that gut bacteria produce compounds that help support the gut lining and regulate the immune system. But it is often difficult to isolate the role of any one signal, understand what happens when those signals are disrupted or determine how those changes may contribute to disease.

Studying live bacteria can also be unpredictable. Results may depend on whether particular strains survive in the body, grow as expected or interact with other microbes in ways that are difficult to control.

To address that challenge, Cao’s lab is developing synthetic microbiome mimics—tiny engineered particles designed to imitate some of the helpful signals bacteria naturally produce. These tools make it possible to ask clearer questions about cause and effect: which signals matter, where they act and how they may influence health over time.

The goal is not simply to better understand the microbiome. It is to use that understanding to help guide future treatment.

KEEPING PATIENT IMPACT IN VIEW

Cao’s lab is especially interested in inflammatory and immune-related conditions, including allergies and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. For many patients, these are long-term conditions that shape daily life in quiet but persistent ways. Treatments may help, but they can also bring side effects, limitations or the burden of ongoing use.

Cao hopes his work will help lay the foundation for therapies that are more targeted and easier for patients to live with over time.

“Our goal is to use these tools to better understand how the microbiome shapes health,” Cao said. “From there, we hope to develop therapies that can target those pathways in meaningful ways.”

That translational focus runs throughout the lab’s work. Alongside the synthetic mimics, Cao’s team is also using computational models to predict where these particles travel in the body and how they behave once they get there. Together, those approaches could help researchers better understand how microbiome-derived signals shape health—and how future therapies might work more effectively with the body’s own biology.

BUILDING TOWARD WHAT COMES NEXT

The field is still relatively young, and many of its biggest questions remain unanswered. That uncertainty is part of what drew Cao to it. His work brings together drug delivery, immunology and microbiome science, with an emphasis on building tools that can move basic research toward practical use.

The CAREER award will also support a broader educational and outreach mission, including the development of new course modules, interdisciplinary workshops, and mentored research experiences for students from a wide range of academic backgrounds.

In collaboration with UW Microbial Interactions & Microbiome Center and the UW Engineering Academy, Cao also hopes to expand outreach in immune and microbiome engineering for K–12 students, helping introduce younger learners to how engineering and biomedical science can work together to address human health challenges.

Together, these efforts are intended to strengthen interdisciplinary training, foster collaboration across traditionally separate fields and help prepare the next generation of scientists to work at the intersection of microbiome science, immunology and engineering. For now, Cao’s lab is focused on building better ways to study one of the body’s most complex systems. In time, that work could help create a clearer path to therapies that are not only more precise, but more useful in the lives of patients.

Congratulations to Pharmaceutics Associate Professor Ed Kelly on being named a Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences (ATS)! This prestigious recognition highlights his significant contributions to the field of toxicology. A well-earned honor—congratulations, Dr. Kelly!

For those who can recall the devastation brought on by the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, today’s treatments are nothing short of a miracle. In a new editorial from The New York Times, long-acting drugs being researched and developed at the University of Washington may have transformative potential for the treatment and prevention of HIV around the world.

Rooted in advancements from the UW School of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmaceutics, the researchers behind the Targeted Long-Acting Combination AntiRetroviral Therapy (TLC-ART) program represent a wealth of expertise and collaboration as they develop therapeutic treatments for HIV, cancer and other infectious diseases. Founded by Dr. Rodney Ho and Dr. Ann Collier, the TLC-ART program represents years of unwavering determination and groundbreaking discoveries, consulting often with experts from statistics and mathematics to behavioral science, pharmacokinetics and more. Leveraging on technical innovation, regulatory acumen and clinical ingenuity, the program embodies a multidisciplinary effort to accelerate discovery into drug combinations with profound potential.

As scientists close in on longer-acting modalities for HIV treatment, like a weekly pill or a monthly shot, researchers at the UW feel optimistic about the future for patients –– especially when it comes to stigma surrounding the disease, which is a barrier to treatment in itself. “That stigma –– that internalized stigma –– of taking that pill every morning, is what prevents them from taking it,” said Dr. Rachel Bender Ignacio, Director of UW Positive Research and a member of UW TLC-ART leadership team.  UW Positive is a human-centered clinical research site within the UW School of Medicine aiming to improve medical care for people with HIV. In Rachel’s words, the mental burden of daily medication is lifted considerably for patients with the promise of enduring care over time: “To not have to remember that every morning is earth changing.”

Long-acting alternatives to traditional HIV treatment have the potential to turn a formidable disease into a manageable diagnosis with encouraging treatment options, especially for patient populations with inconsistent access to healthcare, housing and transportation –– a promising development in a country where 39 million people live with HIV but only half have the disease under control. Long-acting TLC-ART HIV treatment product may provide long-acting treatment to reduce stigma, less frequent dosing and perhaps longer lasting remission so that people living with HIV will have equal chance to remain in good health.

The first phase of clinical testing is underway for TLC-ART 101 –– an injectable, long-acting drug product candidate for HIV treatment developed by the TLC-ART program at UW. By harnessing the power of synchronized drug delivery, TLC-ART 101 not only ensures sustained plasma and cellular drug presence but also heralds a new era of patient adherence and convenience. And the impact doesn’t stop there.

With a steadfast commitment to public-private partnerships, the TLC-ART program continually breaks new ground in biomedical research, with current projects focusing on hepatitis B, breast cancer and pancreatic cancer treatment. Through the collaborative efforts of esteemed sponsors, supporters and industry benefactors, the TLC-ART program at UW continues to push the boundaries of scientific possibility with a promise of hope and progress for millions of patients worldwide.

As this crucial work continues to make headlines, the UW School of Pharmacy reaffirms our position at the forefront of HIV and cancer research to develop the best long-acting and drug combination therapeutics synchronized to make clinical impacts. In partnership with healthcare leaders across disciplines world-wide, we chart new territories and forge ahead with unwavering determination. Together, we’re guided by a simple truth: Through science, compassion and collaboration, we can overcome even the most daunting challenges to our collective wellbeing, one breakthrough at a time.

Sebastián Antonio Gallegos began his love for science in high school through an outsourcing program in Berkeley. Through this program, Sebastián had the opportunity to learn basic lab techniques and developed an understanding of drug development within the pharmaceutical industry.

Congratulations to UW School of Pharmacy Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutics, Shijie Cao, who recently received a Faculty Starter Grant in drug delivery from the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association Foundation (PhRMA). This award is intended to provide support to promising young scientists beginning independent research careers at the faculty level.

A team consisting of four UW School of Pharmacy faculty recently received a 5-year, $4.5 million grant from the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) to launch a Transporter Elucidation Center at the University of Washington (UWTEC). The mission of the UWTEC is to identify, quantify, and functionally characterize solute carrier (SLC) and ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters in the human placenta and developing gut to better understand nutrient uptake and drug exposure to the fetus, neonates, and infants.

The UWSOP research team includes Drs. Jash Unadkat (PI), Joanne Wang (Co-PI), Sam Arnold, and Ed Kelly from the Department of Pharmaceutics, along with collaborators from the UW School of Medicine, and Dr. Nicholas Leronimakis from the Madigan Army Medical Center.

The research team has unique and diverse expertise, ranging from state-of-art proteomics, transporter biology and functional analysis, mass spectrometry and imaging, to human intestinal organoids and microphysiological systems, and ex vivo human placenta perfusion models.

The UWTEC is one of four newly created national centers focusing on a better understanding of mechanisms involved in the uptake and disposition of drugs, nutrients, and dietary substances during early human development. The researchers hope their work will lead to healthier prenatal and perinatal fetal development as well as improved safety for medication use in pregnant and pediatric patients.

Department of Pharmaceutics Professor Jash Unadkat was recently awarded the ISSX North American Scientific Achievement Award in honor of Ronald W. Estabrook. This is an outstanding recognition of Jash’s remarkable research contributions in understanding transporter DMPK and changes in drug disposition during pregnancy, and in development and applications of novel methods such as PET imaging and proteomics to DMPK research. In addition, Jash was recognized for his extensive teaching and mentoring contributions that include teaching students at the UW, participating in workshops and courses and having mentored 85 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.

Congratulations Jash!

Each year, UWSOP Department of Pharmaceutics announces student awards & fellowships. Here are the 2023 recipients:

Tim Tsang – Danny Shen Endowed Graduate Award

Anish Mahadeo – William E. Bradley Endowed Fellowship

Christopher Arian – Levy Endowed Graduate Fellowship

Keiann Simon – Edward Kelly Endowed Graduate Award

Aurora Authement – Danny Shen Endowed Graduate Award

Vicky Sun – Danny Shen Endowed Graduate Award

Yue (Winnie) Wen – Ji-Ping Wang Endowed Fellowship

Inga Erickson, a master’s student in the Department of Pharmaceutics, won the American Epilepsy Society 2023 Grass Foundation Young Investigator Award. Her abstract stood out among 1,300 entries. Inga’s remarkable achievement earns her a spot at the AES 2023 Annual Meeting in Orlando, where she will present her research. This award recognizes and honors eight exceptional young investigators conducting basic or clinical neuroscience research related to epilepsy.

Pharmaceutics students Letícia Salvador Vieira (left) and Ellen Riddle (right) both received awards for their poster presentations at the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) 2023 Conference in St. Louis in May.

Letícia Salvador Vieira received 2nd in the Division for Drug Metabolism and Disposition Poster Award. She also received a 3rd place Dolores C. Shockley Award, given to underrepresented students in biomedical sciences for her poster on “The Plasma Membrane Monoamine Transporter (PMAT) is Highly Expressed in Neuroblastoma and Functions as a Mitochondrial mIBG Transporter”.

Ellen Riddle earned 3rd place in the Division for Drug Metabolism and Disposition Poster Award for her research on “Development of Novel DIA Based Proteomics Tools for Quantification of Drug-Protein Adducts”.

Learn more about ASPET and the annual conference here.

King Yabut, a PhD candidate in the Department of Pharmaceutics in his sixth year, has been named a recipient of the 2023 MLK Community Service Award. Yabut dedicates his personal and professional life to empowering underserved communities through mentorship and service to others.

As a kind and patient mentor, Yabut has created spaces for young scientists to learn and explore their professional potential, and as a community member, he volunteers his time as a basketball coach for middle school students.

An active and engaged member of the University of Washington community, Yabut serves as a graduate student advisory board member on the UW Office of Graduate Student Equity and Excellence (GSEE), participates in the Outreaching Grads Program, and contributes to student panels and recruitment events aimed at increasing the diversity of the student body.

Throughout his professional, academic and personal accomplishments, Yabut is highly regarded for his modesty, humility and unceasing values. He exemplifies the principles of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., both in our community and far beyond.

Congratulations, Leticia Salvador Vieira, on receiving the 3rd prize for Best Podium Presentation at the 13th biennial Globalization of Pharmaceutics Education Network (GPEN) Conference 2022 (Minneapolis, October 19th-22nd)!

Leticia is a 5th year Ph.D. student at the Department of Pharmaceutics. The title of her award-winning presentation is “Evaluation of the transwell system as a tool to better predict OCT2 and MATE-mediated renal drug-drug interactions.”

Sara Shum ‘21, a PhD graduate from UWSOP’s Department of Pharmaceutics, has been chosen as a recipient of the 2021 Gillette Award for the last chapter of her dissertation, which has been published in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) as a paper titled “Predicting Maternal-Fetal Disposition of Fentanyl Following Intravenous and Epidural Administration Using Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling”.

The James R. Gillette Award is presented each year by The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) for two outstanding papers published in Drug Metabolism and Disposition, one award in each broad category, a) Drug Metabolism and b) Disposition and Pharmacokinetics.

“I am grateful for the recognition of the significance and the scientific method to use PBPK modeling to study maternal-fetal disposition, an understudied area in pharmaceutical research,” Sara said.

“The Gillette award is not only a recognition of our work but also [Dr. Nina Isoherranen’s] mentorship to build me up as a true pharmacokineticist. I am deeply grateful to her and my dissertation committee—Dr. Danny Shen, Dr. Ed Kelly, Dr. Qingcheng Mao, and Dr. Gail Anderson—for their guidance.”

Read the paper here.

UWSOP Department of Pharmaceutics student, Roshni Sabhaya, has been awarded a Mary Gates Research Scholarship to investigate the effects of certain toxins on Chronic Kidney Diseases of Unknown Etiology (CKDu) using the kidney chip system developed at UWSOP.

Sabhaya is working with SOP Department of Pharmaceutics Research Scientist Jade Yang to develop protocols that will allow the lab to assess at the sub-cellular level what is happening to human kidney cells when they are exposed to an environmental toxin linked with the development of CKDu. “I am interested in [understanding] the role of cell cycle arrest in the progression of kidney injury to CKDu,” Roshni said.

“Success in this project will greatly impact multiple programs in the lab, including the recently awarded NASA grant project with UWSOP Assistant Professor Cathy Yeung,’05, and Department of Nephrology Associate Professor Benjamin Freedman,” added UWSOP Associate Professor Ed Kelly, also part of the kidney chip research team and Roshni’s mentor.

“With this scholarship, I hope to further develop my research interests through additional projects that study the effects of different drugs and toxins,” said Roshni. “I am also looking forward to making new connections within the Mary Gates scholar community.”

UWSOP Assistant Professor and Kidney Research Institute Investigator Cathy Yeung ‘05 and her team—composed of Ed Kelly, Benjamin “Beno” Freedman, along with Kenneth Thummel ‘87, and Jonathan Himmelfarb—have been awarded a contract for their study titled, Extended Culture of Kidney MPS and Organoids to Model Acute and Chronic Exposure to Drugs and Environmental Toxins.

This study is one of eight projects chosen for funding from 2022–2025 by NASA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“Finding kidney disease cures and preventing kidney disease progression demands immediate action and requires innovative strategies and models,” said Yeung. “Our team has approached the challenge by developing two innovative models.”

Currently, these models are generally used to test limited (days to weeks) exposures to drugs or other stressors.

“We propose to extend the use of our systems to model longer exposures, up to six months, to stressors and subsequent recovery,” Yeung added.

The goal of their study is to develop increased longevity kidney MPS and organoids. This will allow better understanding of chronic kidney disease and the prediction of chronic toxicity and injury.

Doctors and drug makers can use the information to accelerate drug development and can guide the development of strategies to prevent or mitigate nephrotoxicity caused by drugs, environmental chemicals, pathogens, and microgravity.

For more information, visit Go.nasa.gov/3hQy8Nb

New initiative champions equity among marginalized students.

Though the University of Washington (UW) prides itself on diversity, there’s still much work to be done regarding the promotion of equitable representation of our state’s native and Latino communities.

Thanks to the dedication and commitment of four UW undergraduate students – Micaela (Mickey) Ruiz, Kaycie Opiyo, Kim Ha and Nana-King-Karikari) – a new program has been designed to energize and advance those efforts. The student-driven initiative, called FEEDBACK (Fostering Educational Excitement Designed for Bold and Academically Curious Kids), aims to encourage educational achievement in young students from underrepresented backgrounds.

In addition to the project’s four co-founders, all pursuing degrees in STEM, the team is comprised of UWSOP graduate student Kendan Jones-Isaac, who is pursuing a doctorate in the Department of Pharmaceutics, and Pharmaceutics Associate Professor Ed Kelly. Both Kelly and Jones-Isaac are serving as project mentors.

“As their graduate mentor, I have been continuously impressed with the creativity and dedication of our student leaders,” said Jones-Isaac. “FEEDBACK is, at its core, shaped towards celebrating the valuable role that educators play in inspiring student aspirations. We are students who have benefited from their inspiration, and want to give back.”

Kelly added that what makes the project special is that it was created by students– for students.

“A goal of the FEEDBACK program is to give the teachers the tools and advice on how to cultivate intellectual curiosity and motivation at this critical juncture in these students’ lives,” he said. “While everything to date has been via online, we do plan to have a field trip for the cohort of students to UW with the grant support we received. ”

The project’s origin took root in late 2020, during a seemingly random study break discussion.

“We were talking about how cool it would be to start a STEM outreach program,” recalls Ruiz, who also serves as executive director for the FEEDBACK project. “Kim (Ha) was looking through her emails and saw several mentioning the Husky SEED grant, so she suggested that we actually start an outreach program and apply for it. We applied for the first SEED grant but got rejected. Then we applied for the OMAD Diversity grant in autumn and got it – and here we are!”

Co-founder Kaycie Opiyo believes empathy and compassion are essential components to making the FEEDBACK project successful.

“I hope this program will create accessibility,” she said. “With FEEDBACK, we can help break down those misconceptions and show kids that there are people out there who care about them and want to see them succeed. We can all learn from each other.”

WE-REACH Helps Fund Game-Changing Hand Injury Treatment, ReHeal.

It’s a wonder how much you depend on your hands and fingers to navigate daily life. Whether it’s dialing a number on your phone or grabbing your car keys, your hands and fingers orchestrate complicated movements to perform the job you expect them to do. Now imagine one day, in a brief moment of distraction, you’re caught off guard and injure your hand badly enough to end up in the emergency room. If the injury is serious, it could result in permanently impaired function. You may no longer be able to dial that phone or grab those keys without wincing in pain.

These types of hand and finger injuries provided the impetus for three individual innovators to connect, collaborate, and investigate over the past 10 years. The result is a promising prototype device called the ReHeal Glove, which will be pilot tested with patients in the next few months using a combination of funding and support from WE-REACH (the Washington Entrepreneurial Research, Evaluation, and Commercialization Hub) and the Department of Defense.

The ReHeal team’s story illustrates the happenstance that is often part of the entrepreneurial process. Sparked by frustration with standard approaches to post-surgical wound treatment, a UW Medicine researcher and hand surgeon, developed an interest in better hand healing. This amounts to wrapping and immobilizing the hand, which leads to downstream wound healing problems. First, the wraps are not transparent, so inspecting the state of healing requires unwrapping, then rewrapping, which risks disrupting fragile new tissue. Second, when the hand or fingers are immobilized during the healing process, which often results in permanent impaired mobility. These problems spurred Dr. Allan to explore the possibilities of regenerative medicine. He wanted to understand why amphibians can regrow limbs after injury, yet human limb regeneration is unheard of… at least almost.

“Based on a few reports in the literature we knew fingertips can regenerate somewhat, especially in kids,” Allan noted. “That was why we thought the digit was a place to start to see if we could show limb regeneration through regenerative medicine approaches.”

Allan successfully secured funding to explore the possibilities through a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant. This U.S. agency funds ideas for transformative change rather than incremental improvements, which seemed the perfect place for a compelling project like Allan’s.

Meanwhile, DARPA introduced Dr. Allan to Professor Muthu Wijesundara, PhD, Division Head of Biomedical Device Technology at UTARI (the University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute), another DARPA-funded researcher working on wound healing for the face. The Wijesundara team’s concept was a “biomask” that used negative pressure wound therapy to draw fluid out of the wound area, helping it heal faster and lowering the risk of infection, while at the same time delivering fresh liquid to the wound to enhance the healing environment.

After comparing notes, the two researchers teamed up and developed an approach to treat hand wounds that would employ negative pressure wound therapy in a glove format. Enter Brandon Bowman, who met Allan when he came in as a patient with a hand wound. Bowman, who is adept with 3D printing technologies and knowledgeable about product development, joined the team to help with prototyping.

Over the past several years, the team has stuck together to advance their project with support from different sources, working at both the UW and UTARI sites. They were able to carry out a compelling pilot clinical study on five patients with damaged fingers, which led to impressive results with five out of five digits healing over bare bone. This provided significant impetus for the team to continue their efforts. They have patents on the basic application of the technology and others in the works.

WE-REACH funding and support has been crucial. The team’s Department of Defense funding covers the basic clinical study, which will be carried out on 10 patients with the aim of gathering data for evidence of product efficacy and safety. But, at the last minute, they were also required to add 2 control patients even though they were not provided additional funding for the necessary study modifications. Fortunately, WE-REACH funds can be applied to a wide array of costs including the use of expert consultants and outside contractors. The team was able to work with contractors at UW’s Institute of Translational Health Sciences (ITHS) for regulatory and clinical study support using WE-REACH funds to keep study plans on track. If this funding were not available, the whole project would be stalled.

The ReHeal study is proceeding under the Early Feasibility Study (EFS) process with FDA oversight, which means every small change needs to be reviewed and accepted before it can proceed. The team has made good use of their time during review delays by simultaneously participating in the virtual CDL Accelerator in Vancouver, Canada, where they are working closely with a team of industry advisors who have been pushing the ReHeal team through a fast-paced commercialization readiness process. One key pivot suggested by the CDL advisors has been to focus first on the simplest product format, which is a single digit sleeve rather than a whole hand glove, and then advance commercial efforts for the simpler format before tackling more difficult full-hand geometry. It turns out that the market size for the single digit sleeve is substantial, too, since finger injuries are quite common.

“The market analysis WE-REACH funded was very helpful,” said Wijesundara. “Other funders like the DoD do not provide that type of support.”

The “Voice of the Customer” interviews the team gathered through a supporting program brought good insight from independent sources and led to new ideas for markets that the team had not previously considered.

If all goes well, the ReHeal glove will be ready in the near future for people who come into the emergency room with hand injuries.  We expect those patients to recover more quickly and regain function more completely. To be sure, we can count on this persistent team to continue on their mission to deliver a better solution for the thousands of patients suffering from these injuries each year.

WE-REACH is one of the NIH Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH) and is supported by NIH Grant U01HL152401.

Learn more about WE-REACH.

UWSOP Pharmaceutics professor Ken Thummel was recently named recipient of the 2022 Bernard B. Brodie Award in Drug Metabolism and Disposition from the ASPET Division for Drug Metabolism and Disposition.  This award recognizes outstanding original research contributions in drug metabolism and disposition, particularly those having a major impact on future research in the field.

Ken received the award in recognition of his pioneering research elucidating genetic, hormonal and environmental factors that contribute to interindividual differences in xenobiotic biotransformation. He pioneered research on first-pass metabolism in the intestine and co-discovered vitamin D-dependent regulation of CYP3A4. He also established midazolam as the preferred in vivo probe for CYP3A4 and played a pivotal role in elucidating the genetic basis for CYP3A5 poor metabolizers. In addition to this research, Ken’s work focuses on the gene x diet modifiers of drug response in Alaska Native and American Indian people. With colleagues at the University of Washington and other northwest and Alaska institutions, he established the first center of pharmacogenetic research for Native Americans.

Ken is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Fellow of ASPET. He is also a Past-President of ASPET and a member since 1998.

The award will be presented by the Division for Drug Metabolism and Disposition at the ASPET Annual Meeting in Philadelphia on Monday, April 4, 2022. Ken will deliver a lecture at the event titled Elucidating the Function of Intestinal CYP3A: A Journey of Discovery and Clinical Importance.

UWSOP’s Department of Pharmaceutics Chair, Nina Isoherranen, has been named the Milo Gibaldi Endowed Chair in Pharmaceutics. Isoherranen is the first woman to be honored with this appointment, which was bestowed in recognition of her ongoing and outstanding scientific and administrative contributions to both the Department and the School of Pharmacy.

Created in 1993 in honor of the late Milo Gibaldi, who served as dean of the School for 17 years, the Milo Gibaldi Endowed Professorship in Pharmaceutics was designed to focus on faculty and student research and education in advanced drug delivery systems.

“I am humbled to be recognized as the new Milo Gibaldi Chair,” Said Isoherranen. “Milo set the standard for excellence in our field and in developing pharmacokinetic theory, and he was an influential teacher and mentor. Milo’s lasting impact and legacy are felt in the department and School. This is a true honor.”

Isoherranen’s 5-year term will run through September 30, 2026.

“Dr. Nina Isoherranen embraces and supports a culture of innovative research and a commitment to student teaching and mentorship – all qualities that defined and characterized former Dean Milo Gibaldi,” said UWSOP Professor and Dean Sean Sullivan. “Appointment to the Milo Gibaldi Endowed Chair is a recognition that Professor Isoherranen embraces both the spirit and tangible qualities embodied by Dr. Gibaldi during his tenure at the University of Washington.”

Read Isoherranen’s bio here.

Congratulations to the Department of Pharmaceutics’ Leticia Salvador Vieira for being named the UW School of Pharmacy’s 2021-22 Magnuson Scholar Award recipient. Each year, the scholarship is awarded to six outstanding students nominated by each of the Health Sciences Schools.

“I am extremely grateful to have been selected as a Magnuson Scholar,” she said. “This award provides me with a unique funding opportunity and boosts my self-confidence in completing my PhD research.”

Also a Levy Endowed Fellow – a graduate fund created by Pharmaceutics Emeritus Department Chair, Rene Levy – Leticia was nominated on the basis of outstanding academic performance and potential contributions to research in the health sciences.

“Leticia has a natural talent in leadership,” said Joanne Wang, Professor of Pharmaceutics. “She is extremely talented, self-driven and passionate about research. She takes pride and ownership on her thesis research and always stays on top of her academic work and research projects.”

A native of Rio Claro, Brazil, Leticia studied Pharmacy and Biochemistry at the University of São Paulo. During her undergraduate study, she was awarded a scholarship at UC Davis where she worked on drug delivery research. In 2018, she was recruited to the University of Washington’s PhD program, where she began studying drug transporters, a rapidly emerging and promising field that has gained more attention from researchers and regulatory agencies.

After obtaining her PhD, Leticia aspires to become both a leader in pharmaceutical research and a mentor for other students.

“My goal is to contribute to the discovery and development of safer and more effective drugs to treat human diseases,” she said. “This is an incredible opportunity for my professional development, and I hope to be an active advocate for academia and industry partnership, acting as a future mentor and tutor for students in pharmaceutical sciences.”

UWSOP Pharmaceutics Associate Professor Ed Kelly has been presented with the 2021 MLK Community Service Award, an annual honor celebrating individuals or groups who exemplify Martin Luther King, Jr.’s principles. A champion of diversity, equity and inclusion in sciences for his entire career, Ed has served as a mentor for entering UW freshman in the GenOM-ALVA program for the past 15 years and frequently hosts diverse students from the Stipends for Training Aspiring Researchers (STAR) summer program.

The Washington Entrepreneurial Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (WE-REACH) is honored to announce that WE-REACH Executive Director and UWSOP Professor of Pharmaceutics Rodney JY Ho has been elected to the rank of NAI Fellow by the 2020 National Academy of Inventors Fellows Selection Committee and Board of Directors.

“Dr. Ho has demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society,” said NAI President Paul R. Sanberg. “Our sincere congratulations on this well-deserved recognition of his accomplishments, and it is an honor to welcome him as a Fellow. I look forward to working with Dr. Ho in support of NAI’s mission to promote the importance of innovation and celebration of academic invention.”

Dr. Ho will be officially welcomed as an NAI fellow at the organization’s 10th Anniversary Annual Meeting event in Tampa, Florida, June 7-9, 2021.

“I am honored to be elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Innovators and cited for translating biomedical innovations into products making an impact on the quality of life,” said Dr. Ho. “I am truly blessed to work with great people – colleagues, students, post-docs and staff members – who are committed daily to contributing creatively and collectively toward economic development and the welfare of society. I could not have done this without their commitment and support.”

Dr. Ho is also the founder and director of the Targeted Long-acting Combination Anti-Retroviral Therapeutic (TLC-ART) program. A public-private partnership, TLC-ART features the support of NIH and WHO’s UNITAID and helps determine which long-lasting drug combinations will most effectively treat HIV in adults and children globally.

For more information about WE-REACH, visit us at https://www.washington.edu/we-reach/ or contact us at wereach@uw.edu.

Department of Pharmaceutics student Kendan Jones-Issac has found his voice.

Third-year Department of Pharmaceutics graduate student Kendan Jones-Issac has participated in several ambitious projects during his tenure at UW, including working on the development of a bioengineered kidney tissue chip that will improve the safety and efficacy of drugs in development, and sending the tissue chip to the International Space Station to explore the effects of microgravity and space travel on kidney function. Although Kendan has space age aspirations for his research and future career, his primary personal passion is a little bit more, shall we say, Earthbound: enter the premier digital pastime known as podcasting.

Considering the complex and sophisticated nature of his work, one might expect Kendan to host a series of highbrow conversations on science- and research-driven topics, but

the truth is, he and his guests would rather discuss 1980s film classics like 1985’s Back To The Future, than the future of nanotechnology.

Dissecting and discussing pop culture has long been a favorite pastime of Kendan, his wife Chalia, and the couple’s group of friends. And thankfully, in this era of evolving social media sharing and audio storytelling, they’ve found the perfect forum to connect with kindred spirits.

“We’ve always enjoyed talking about movies, current events, and podcasts, so we thought it would be fun to record our discussions,” Kendan explained. “When deciding on a theme, Chalia pitched the 1980s, because she was in the middle of watching an episode of Cheers and was fascinated with how her childhood memories of the show differed so greatly from her perceptions watching as an adult – and as someone living in a society that’s progressed thirty years.”

With that nostalgia-fused eureka moment, the couple’s podcast – the appropriately titled “Made In The 80s” – was born. The debut episode was published on August 18, 2017 and revealed a wide-ranging discussion on the cinematic one-two punch of Rocky III (1982) and Rocky IV (1985).

For the “Made In The 80s” team, the podcast medium offers more than a waltz down memory lane. It’s a nostalgia trip that investigates how the cultural pulse of one generation reverberates and impacts the next.

“So much from the 80s was influenced by the war on drugs, the cold war, and a rise in consumerism,” said co-host and Seattle film critic, Tim Hall, whose “People’s Critic” blog is posted at the Seattle P. I. “It makes 80s television and film an interesting re-watch.”

Prior to the pandemic, the trio conducted their podcast in Kendan and Chalia’s spare bedroom, which was outfitted to as a makeshift recording studio, but these days work and play share the same space.

“Pre-COVID, we recorded from home with our friends visiting and participating as guest hosts,” said Kendan. “Currently, our recording room doubles as my COVID workspace.”

Though Kendan, Chalia and their friends continue to enjoy the process of producing their on-air gatherings and lively discussions, there are no plans to join the ranks of full-time commercial podcasts.

“It’s something enjoyable we do to share with our friends,” said Kendan. “Adding a commercial aspect to what is now an enjoyable hobby would transform it into something different. I’ve seen it happen with several other podcasts that I have enjoyed throughout the years. Also, all three of us have put a lot of investment into our day jobs which we all find fulfilling.”

Chalia, a lawyer by day who serves as podcast editor and technical guru, agrees, and adds that she can’t believe they’re been producing “Made In The 80s” for three years.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” she said. “Somehow, our topics stay relevant and we have so much more content that will keep us going indefinitely. I’m excited for the day that we finally make it into our 90s years, too.”

You read it here first, podcast enthusiasts, “Made In The 90s” is right around the corner.

Check out Kendan and Chalia’s podcast “Made In The 80s” here:https://mit80s.podbean.com/.
Listeners can also find the podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Google Music, and other podcast apps.

UWSOP alumni legend Deanna Kroetz was recently named the inaugural Jere E. Goyan Presidential Chair for the Advancement of Pharmacy at the University of California San Francisco School of Pharmacy.

A professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, Deanna graduated from UWSOP’s Department of Pharmaceutics with a PhD in 1990.  Her primary research role at UCSF involves seeking to understand the contribution of genetic variation to drug toxicity, identifying genetic biomarkers that can be used to guide effective use of drugs in the treatment of cancer and HIV, and using genetics to unravel the molecular basis of drug-induced toxicity.

“Like Dean Goyan, my roots are in pharmacy and this motivates my research and my contributions to professional and graduate education within the school,” she said. “Support from this chair will allow my lab to push forward our efforts to understand the molecular basis of drug toxicity and to develop new training paths for pharmacist scientists. It’s a wonderful honor.”

Congratulations to Sara Shum, a #UWSOP Department of Pharmaceutics graduate student who was awarded the 2020 UWSOP Pharmaceutics’ Graduate Student Leadership Award in May. Sara, who expects to graduate this fall with her PhD in Pharmaceutics, joined the Department of Pharmaceutics in 2016, and Dr. Nina Isoherranen’s lab in 2017. Sara has demonstrated her leadership skills and contributed to the academic excellence of the department through classroom teachings and mentoring junior students. She has also contributed to enhancing a strong network at the UW by active participation in school and department activities designed to connect students with alumni and to recruit new talents.

Seattle, WA (July 14, 2020)—The Washington Entrepreneurial Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (WE-REACH) is pleased to announce its first awards to facilitate early-stage product development for two biomedical innovations. WE-REACH invests up to $200,000 per awarded project. Funding comes from the NIH with matching support from our partners at the Institute of Translational Health Sciences, CoMotion, the Institute for Protein Design, the UW School of Pharmacy, and the UW Office of Research.

The first award is with Stephanie Berger, PhD, a Translational Investigator at the Institute for Protein Design, who is developing a novel peptide to treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease. She intends to block an inflammatory cytokine receptor called IL-23R with an oral, locally active peptide, thus providing a safe, convenient, and cost-effective therapy for a disease with few good treatments.

The second award supports Christopher Allan, MD, Associate Professor of Orthopedics at the University of Washington, who is designing a healing glove for patients with burns, wounds, infections, and other traumas to their hands. The device uses negative pressure wound therapy to accelerate recovery.

“We’re excited to help these two innovations on their developmental path toward breaking into the marketplace,” said Dr. Rodney Ho, the executive director of WE-REACH. “In addition to funding, WE-REACH provides value-added product development, regulatory strategy, intellectual property protection, market analysis, and follow-on grant development to help ensure the success of these potentially life-changing technologies.”

Both projects have been reviewed by experts at the NIH, Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, third-party payers, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office, as well as an entrepreneurial committee of local experts in the Seattle area.

WE-REACH has received an additional 26 project applications, of which 7 have been selected for consideration of further support.

The call for our next round of projects will be in Fall of 2020.

WE-REACH is an NIH supported network of public-private partnerships accelerating the translation of biomedical discoveries into commercially viable products to improve patient care and enhance health.

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For more information, visit us at https://www.washington.edu/we-reach/ or contact us at wereach@uw.edu.

WE-REACH is supported by NIH Grant 1 U01 HL152401-01.

Shiu-Lok Hu’s work began decades ago in utter frustration with a powerful and unknown virus and continues today…with promising new leads and a novel approach to creating an HIV vaccine.

“I began this work 30 years ago and have seen the diagnosis of AIDS change from a certain death sentence to a manageable chronic condition. My dream is to see it disappear.”—Shiu-Lok Hu, Milo Gibaldi Endowed Professor of Pharmaceutics

Vaccines save lives. When the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was identified, there soon followed calls to create a vaccine. If we can have vaccines for influenza, mumps, measles and other viruses, it seems logical that we could have one for HIV as well.

But HIV presents a significant challenge to creating a vaccine. HIV is a highly lethal virus that continues to evolve in the body, making it difficult for the infected person to clear the infection. Without effective therapeutic intervention, there are few survivors after contracting HIV. “If you get mumps and recover from it, you develop a lifetime immunity,” explains Pharmaceutics Professor Shiu-Lok Hu. “This has been the paradigm for classical vaccine development: to mimic natural infection without causing the disease. But, to make a HIV vaccine, we may have to look for a new paradigm. HIV leaves few survivors. Unfortunately, HIV has evolved many mechanisms to evade the immune system and ultimately destroy it. Even today, with effective treatments, if you stop taking drugs, the virus comes back.”

About 30 years ago, Shiu-Lok had a breakthrough to create a prime-boost immunization to help the body fight the virus, similar to other vaccine protocols with booster shots. That breakthrough began decades of Shiu-Lok’s research funded by the National Institutes of Health and more recently by the Gates Foundation.

So far, the only vaccine that has shown a modest (~30%) efficacy is the one tested on >16,000 volunteers in Thailand (the Thai trial), that uses the “prime-boost” strategy. Although the Thai trial has shown the feasibility of vaccination against HIV, further improvements are needed to make it an effective preventive measure.

Shiu-Lok has joined forces with Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry Kelly Lee to continue the research to find a reliable vaccine and booster. They are using a genetically engineered smallpox vaccine to prime the immune system, followed by recombinant HIV proteins as a boost. In this new grant, Shiu-Lok and Kelly hope to improve the efficacy of the “prime-boost” approach by designing a more effective vaccine. Kelly has studied the influenza virus, which utilizes mechanisms similar to those used by HIV to “dock” onto the host cell, pry it open, transfer the viral genes into the cell, thereby taking it over and causing the infection.

The team seeks to create a vaccine that could better expose the part of HIV it uses to dock onto the cell, thus making it easier for the body to mount immune responses to block infection. If successful, these approaches are likely to result in greater efficacy than that achieved in the Thai trial.

This project highlights the unique capacity of the UW School of Pharmacy in pharmaceutical sciences, as Shiu-Lok and Kelly each bring different expertise in virology, immunology, and structural biochemistry to tackle problems such as HIV vaccine. Their partnership could well lead to a breakthrough to find a safe and efficacious vaccine to help make the world free of AIDS.

The five-year, $4.5M grant was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (R01AI129673).

To study with UWSOP’s top faculty in health economics and outcomes, medicinal chemistry, and pharmaceutics, click here for more information about our Graduate Programs in Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy, and Biomedical Regulatory Affairs.

One of the University of Washington’s significant population health projects began ten years ago with a collaboration led by Pharmaceutics Professor Ken Thummel and Wylie Burke, professor of Bioethics and Humanities in the UW School of Medicine. The multidisciplinary research group with faculty from the Departments of Bioethics and Humanities, Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Genome Sciences, Medicinal Chemistry, Laboratory Medicine, and Pharmacy, joined a nationwide network of scientists through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study how genes affect individual response to medicines.

The mission of the National Institute of Health’s Pharmacogenomics Research Network (PGRN) is to catalyze and lead research in precision medicine for the discovery and translation of genomic variation influencing therapeutic and adverse drug effects. The NIH grant was one of 14 nationwide— totaling $166.3 million.

Ken and Wylie have used their NIH funding ($18 million over 10 years) to create a center to study pharmacogenomics in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) and rural Pacific Northwest populations. Their goal is to reduce barriers that limit the inclusion of American Indian and Alaska Native people in pharmacogenomic research, and to expand the knowledge base of pharmacogenomic variation, so that these traditionally underserved communities, and their healthcare providers, have increased opportunities to evaluate the merits of prospective pharmacogenetic testing and introduce advances into clinical practice.

Tribal communities have historically been overlooked in health-related research, or research was often conducted without their input or oversight, and with little data sharing afterward. “Given this history, a major component of our work is to restore trust between research communities and tribal communities,” said Ken. “We are doing this not only by working with tribal elders and members and their healthcare providers, and seeking their input on procedures, but also by being as transparent as possible.”

The center’s research initially focused on genetic variables influencing drug therapy with the blood thinner warfarin, the anti-estrogen tamoxifen, and the immunosuppressant tacrolimus. Through additional grant support from NIH, NWA-PGRN center post doc researcher and Navajo Tribe member Katrina Claw focused on nicotine metabolism to support smoking cessation and the metabolism of Vitamin D.

Vitamin D deficiency is a public health problem, particularly for northern latitude indigenous populations. Limited sunlight exposure and a shift to Western diets and lifestyles may be some of the driving causes of insufficiency, but gene variation modifies individual risk. As more Alaska Native and American Indian people suffer from vitamin D insufficiency, there may be increases in pathologies like cancer, heart disease, and bone disease.

In their latest round of NIH funding, NWA-PGRN investigators continue to partner with AI/AN communities in Alaska and Montana to conduct research on different pharmacogenes, including those that affect anticoagulation and antiplatelet therapies for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. They are also examining diet, as an additional modifier of anticoagulation and antiplatelet drug responses.

Katrina Claw, PhD | Post Doc & MLK Service Award Winner

Katrina’s research has focused on pharmacogenomics and the ethical implications of genomic research in Indigenous communities. Her projects focus on hepatic variation, tobacco pharmacogenomics, and perceptions of genetic research in American Indian communities. Working with tribal partners in the Northwest-Alaska Pharmacogenetic Research Network (NWA-PGRN), Katrina’s NIH fellowship research seeks to identify and functionally characterize variation in genes related to vitamin D metabolism. One of her projects is qualitative and has focused on examining the perspectives of American Indian tribes regarding genetic/genomic research. There is a history of research misconduct with Indigenous populations, and her work has examined attitudes and perspectives of tribal members with the eventual goals of developing community-driven genetic research projects and policies.

The UW School of Pharmacy Graduate Program Awards offer special recognition of our preeminent graduate students and faculty. We are pleased to share that Antonio Lopez, a graduate PhD student in Pharmaceutics, was recognized for the department’s 2019 Graduate Student Leadership Award.

We learned from his nominators that Antonio demonstrates leadership by participating in and advocating for community outreach events, including coordinating connections between our current and prospective graduate students during the big snowstorms that hit Seattle this past winter. Through his efforts, the visiting students had an enjoyable experience despite the inclement weather. “Antonio is a positive, compassionate member of the Pharmaceutics community and really fun to be around,” said one nominator.

In addition to bringing good spirit to the department, Antonio has been the activity coordinator for American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) for the past three years. Said one student colleague, “he has been very helpful and generous with his time to help fellow students.” Another peer noted that Antonio was a kind and patient mentor, who was always willing to set aside time to help out others.

Antonio, thank you for your leadership within the Pharmaceutics community and congratulations on your award!

To study with peers like Antonio Lopez, click on the links for more information about our Graduate Programs in Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy, and Biomedical Regulatory Affairs.

Link to Pharmaceutics archived news

We are so proud to learn that Professor Rodney Ho has been named the recipient of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Volwiler Research Achievement Award.

The research prize in academic pharmacy was established in honor of the late Ernest H. Volwiler, former president and research director of Abbott Laboratories.

Each year, the Award honors an individual within the ranks of pharmacy education who is recognized by his or her peers as one of the leading researchers in a given area of the pharmaceutical and clinical sciences, pharmacy practice and the social and administrative sciences, and for outstanding contributions to the respective disciplines.

This award consists of a gold medal and a $5,000 prize which are presented to the Award winner.

Rodney is the second UWSOP faculty member to receive this prestigious award. In 2011, UWSOP Dean Emeritus Sidney Nelson, ’68, received the Volwiler Award.

Click to learn more about Rodney’s Targeted, Long-acting and Combination Anti-Retroviral Therapy (TLC-ART) project.

To study with researchers like Pharmaceutics’ Professor Rodney Ho, click on the links for more information about our Graduate Programs in Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy, and Biomedical Regulatory Affairs.

Link to Pharmaceutics archived news

Qingcheng Mao collaborates with colleagues across UWSOP to gain insight into how pregnancy affects drug disposition in expectant mothers and their fetuses

About 80% of pregnant women take at least one medication to treat everything from high blood pressure to depression to diabetes and more. The risks for mother and child vary from drug to drug. With almost 12,000 drugs on the market, it’s very hard to test all the drugs, how they interact, and how pregnancy can affect the drugs’ impact on the body. And it’s virtually impossible to test the effect illicit drugs have on expectant mothers and their babies.

For fifteen years, Associate Professor Qingcheng Mao has made it his life’s work to find another way to predict how licit and illicit drugs affect the mother and fetus. “The mechanisms are still not well understood, leaving these populations vulnerable,” he shared. “I want to develop a thorough understanding of the mechanisms by which pregnancy alters how drugs affect the body and particularly the fetus. There is a lot of work we can do in this very important and promising area of research.” 

First, Qingcheng needed a reliable model to study the mechanisms of drugs and how they impact pregnant women and their babies. Working with UWSOP researchers Professors Mary Hebert and Jash Unadkat, he was one of the first to demonstrate that the way drugs are metabolized and cleared in pregnant women can be replicated in mice. He then looked at glyburide, a drug used to treat gestational diabetes that is increasingly prescribed as it is easier to take than insulin.

“It’s neither ethically feasible nor desirable to conduct clinical studies in pregnant women for ALL drugs. Instead, we look at how pregnancy alters the mechanisms for how the body handles drugs to gain insight into their safety and efficacy.” — Qingcheng Mao, Associate Professor, Pharmaceutics

The danger is that babies born to mothers who take glyburide face a number of complications, including respiratory distress, low blood sugar, and more. Qingcheng found one transporter protein that can limit fetal exposure to glyburide by returning the drug back into the mother’s circulation, making it safe for the baby. Misuse of licit and illicit drugs, including opioids, can double or triple the risk of stillbirth and cause withdrawal symptoms (neonatal abstinence syndrome or NAS). Buprenorphine and methadone are commonly used to curb the abuse of prescription opioids and heroin, but little was known about their effect on fetuses and infants.

Qingcheng was the first to find a mechanism that could induce a protective protein (breast cancer resistance protein [BCRP]) to limit fetal exposure to these drugs, making them safer for the baby when mothers take them to tackle their addiction during pregnancy.

Qingcheng’s findings have the potential to improve drug safety for mothers and their babies. He plans to continue his research and hopes to look at the effect of cannabis, which is widely used and little studied. His knowledge of these mechanisms increases the ways in which drug safety can be analyzed—saving the lives and health of these vulnerable populations.

To study with researchers like Pharmaceutics’ Associate Professor Qingcheng Mao, click on the links for more information about our Graduate Programs in Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy, and Biomedical Regulatory Affairs.

Link to Pharmaceutics archived news

It’s called an experiment for a reason. The secret in science—what world-class researchers know—is that you don’t let the failures stop you. You think of the failures as more data, part of your larger body of work.

For scientists as creative and productive as Jash Unadkat, learning to move past the failures, to learn from them and continue to what’s next, is a key skill that he encourages in his graduate students, post docs, and staff. “We have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and march on—like a child learning to walk,” he reminds them.

A few years ago he and his lab team thought they had a big break through in a novel approach to treating Alzheimer’s disease. In the brain, there is a key transporter protein (P-glycoprotein) that keeps drugs from getting through the blood brain barrier. “It acts like a bouncer at a nightclub,” said Jash. “It keeps some drugs from getting in, but it also ejects β-amyloid from the brain.” He continued, “We hypothesized a number of years ago that maybe the reason you get Alzheimer’s is due to an accumulation of β-amyloid in brain and they clump and form plaques.”

They thought further that perhaps one of the reasons β-amyloid builds up in the brain is because the “bouncer” P-glycoprotein is compromised, and not able to kick enough of the β-amyloid out of the so-called Brain Club. The team decided to introduce a drug, Rifampin, that increases the amount of P-glycoprotein in the intestine to see if it would do the same in the brain and improve the protein’s ability to remove β-amyloid. To their disappointment they found that Rifampin did not increase the activity level of P-glycoprotein in the brain.

“We were so optimistic that we had a solution that could lead to using an already approved drug in a new way to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Our findings were disappointing, but our work continues with new methods.” —Jash Unadkat, Milo Gibaldi Endowed Professor of Pharmaceutics

Although the team published the research and (then) graduate student Li Liu received a Best Paper Award in DMD, they were now back to square one in the riddle. They knew that drug didn’t work and didn’t know if the lower level of P-glycoprotein was a cause or effect of Alzheimer’s disease. Well, or maybe square two.

Despite that drug not working, it did advance the research and led to an award-winning paper for Anand Deo, one of Jash’s post doc fellows at the time. A few years have passed and the team is taking a new approach with quantitative proteomics o investigate the effect of Alzheimer’s disease on P-glycoprotein levels in the human brain by using liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry and to see if they can measure the difference in P-glycoprotein using this other approach.

They are looking to other proteins that may be important in the process. Proteomics will help by giving insight into the mechanisms in the cells that can change the P-glycoprotein activity levels. There is comfort in the negative results of their initial study. “It means that if someone is taking Rifampin they are not going to increase P-glycoprotein activity in brain, which is particularly important if they are taking a drug for their central nervous system disease, like depression or epilepsy. They know they can safely take the drug because of this study,” said Jash. 

To study faculty like Dr. Jash Unadkat, click on the link for more information about our PhD Program in Pharmaceutics.

Link to Pharmaceutics archived news

Congratulations to Jash Unadkat, the Milo Gibaldi Endowed Professor of Pharmaceutics, named Outstanding Faculty Mentor at this year’s Commencement. The Outstanding Mentor Award recognizes and encourages outstanding mentorship of graduate students by our School’s faculty.

The criteria for this Award include extraordinary commitment and effectiveness as a mentor and demonstrated commitment to creating an environment supportive of graduate students’ success.

A graduate student wrote, “Jash truly inspires me to be inquisitive and ask questions, think broadly, read widely, pay attention to detail and never forget the passion for science I first brought with me….Jash is an outstanding example of dedication to his calling. His contagious enthusiasm and voracity for knowledge has been passed onto many generations of students.”

Congratulations, Jash!

To study faculty like Dr. Jash Unadkat, click on the link for more information about our PhD Program in Pharmaceutics.

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Pharmaceutics graduate student David Plotnik is first author on a paper published in the Journal of Virology with his mentor Shiu-Lok Hu as senior author. David discovered that the HIV virus does not bind to intestinal T cells the way previously thought.

Why is that important? HIV causes disease by killing the immune system’s protective T cells, most of which are located in the intestines. When HIV invades the intestines, it destroys intestinal T cells, a loss that plays a major role in the development of AIDS. Finding strategies for protecting intestinal T cells are expected to improve HIV vaccines and therapies.

Most of the intestinal T cells have a receptor called α4β7 that had been thought to bind to the HIV envelope protein, causing the infection—so this interaction between the receptor and HIV is being investigated as a potential target for therapies and vaccines. David discovered that—contrary to previous reports—the HIV envelope protein does not bind to α4β7.

There is a different protein, fibronectin (normally found in tissue), that forms a link between the HIV envelope and α4β7. This finding changes the understanding of how intestinal T cells are targeted by HIV, and suggests new therapeutic approaches for protecting these cells.

This work was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NIH grant P51 OD010425, the UW Proteomics Resource grant UWPR95794, and Milo Gibaldi Endowment. David was supported by the Pharmaceutical Sciences Training Grant also (T32 GM007750).

To study with peers in Pharmaceutics like David Plotnik and faculty like Dr. Shiu-Lok Hu, click on the link for more information about our PhD Program in Pharmaceutics.

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CYRUS KHOJASTEH, ’98, chose to study Medicinal Chemistry at UWSOP after serendipitously attending a lecture by then Professor, now Dean Emeritus, Tom Baillie on acetaminophen mechanism of hepatotoxicity, drug induced liver injury, in the early 1990s. That lecture began a career in pharmaceutical science inspired by an interest in discovering innovative and safe medicine, a marriage of pharmacology and chemistry.

Cyrus is an internationally recognized expert in drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics. His work in drug metabolism allows him to think about the chemistry of life and how a positive intervention is needed against a disease state. “Our bodies are designed to recognize and metabolize newly made chemicals not seen before,” he said. “By knowing one of the barriers (the drug metabolizing enzymes), how do we design and optimize molecules that are metabolically stable and minimize formation of reactive metabolites, which potentially can lead to toxicity.”

Cyrus fondly remembers his PhD advisor and mentor former Dean Sid Nelson: “He taught me how to be a thoughtful researcher and nurture talents.” Sid used to hold group meetings for students on Friday afternoons. “It was at those meetings that I learned how to get to the point and be focused on key questions,” recalls Cyrus.

And of course, after those group meetings, Sid would invite everyone to the College Inn. Cyrus remembers, “Some of the most complicated chemical reactions would be solved at the Pub but some reactions still remained a mystery the next day!”

“My advice to students is to explore and learn from the exceptional professors. When you graduate,  stay connected to our school.” –Cyrus Khojasteh, Pharmaceutics Alumnus

After graduating with his doctoral degree, Cyrus joined Pfizer and a couple of years later joined Genentech as the first drug metabolism expert. There, he is on both the scientific track (Principal Scientist) and the managerial track (Associate Director). He said when he learned of the Distinguished Alumni Award, he was “humbled by the recognition and thought of all those who contributed.”

To study with leaders in Pharmaceutics, click on the link for more information about our PhD Program in Pharmaceutics.

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Infertility can be a physically, emotionally, and financially painful experience for couples wanting to have biologically-related children. If a couple has been unable to conceive naturally in a 12-month period, they are considered infertile. Next steps are typically expensive and painful tests for women to determine the cause of the problem, before a couple pursues assisted reproductive technology such as IVF and IUI.

But all that may change thanks to newly minted UWSOP alumnus and physician John Amory, ’17 and his master’s thesis work with Nina Isoherranen. Working with graduate student Faith Stevison, the team found a major breakthrough in men’s fertility.

Ironically, the breakthrough came from John’s research into a male contraceptive medication. After years of researching how to reduce sperm counts, John hypothesized that perhaps there was a way to increase sperm counts. He decided it was time to research in-depth and enrolled in the Pharmaceutics master’s degree program. “If you are retinoic acid or Vitamin A deficient, male fertility is suppressed,” said Nina. “John hypothesized that if he could find a drug to increase intratesticular retinoic acid, it would increase men’s sperm counts and thereby the chance of conception.”

It turns out there is an FDA-approved drug, Accutane, a prescription acne medication, that is a retinoic acid isomer and increases retinoic acid concentrations and men’s sperm counts.

For his Pharmaceutics thesis research, John obtained an Investigational New Drug (IND) from the FDA to test his theory that Accutane could be used to treat male infertility by increasing sperm counts. Early results are very promising. From his pilot group of 19 men there are now five babies: three from spontaneous pregnancies and two from assisted conception (one additional pregnancy did not come to term).

“The fact that we were able to overcome male infertility for six men in our small sample group, using a medication that is already on the market, shows great promise for couples wishing to conceive.”

–Dr. John Amory, ’17, M.S., Pharmaceutics alumnus

John wants to conduct further research to understand better why this drug intervention did not work for about a third of the patients. “There are no obvious reasons why it didn’t work in terms of ethnicity, age, weight or other common indicators,” he said, “so I am curious if there are other markers that might explain why.” His research has been accepted for publication and he plans to pursue a double blind placebo study to confirm the pilot test findings.

John said earning his master’s in Pharmaceutics changed how he practices medicine and thinks about research. “I know a lot more about drug interactions than I did before, even as a seasoned physician. I have a greater appreciation for how hard it is to make a drug and bring it to market. We tend to take medications for granted,” he continued, “but there is a saying: ‘the miraculous nature of the mundane.’ To me, the idea you can take something as mundane as a pill and use it to treat a symptom or cure a disease—that’s a miracle.”

John’s breakthrough findings have the promise of alleviating financial, emotional, and physical stress for many couples wanting to grow their families. If the early pilots bear fruit, the tests and treatment for male infertility could drastically reduce the costs and radically improve outcomes for fertility treatment.

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