College of Pharmacy News

Somshuvra Mukhopadhyay, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., associate professor in the Division of Pharmacology and Toxicology and Hamm Centennial Fellow in Pharmacy, and a team of researchers have released new findings defining the first homeostatic regulatory pathway for manganese in mammalian systems. Identifying these pathways opens up new possible options to prevent or treat manganese-induced parkinsonism and other disorders linked to elevated manganese exposure.

Combining mobile health technology, or mHealth, and community outreach to improve the health outcomes of people experiencing homelessness is the target of a new study led by Division of Health Outcomes Associate Professor Leticia Moczygemba, Pharm.D., Ph.D., thanks to a five-year research grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Three researchers from the College of Pharmacy won an award from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Foundation. Leticia R. Moczygemba, Pharm.D., Ph.D., Carolyn M. Brown, Ph.D. and Michael Johnsrud, Ph.D., R.Ph. were awarded $5,000 from the PhRMA Foundation for their proposal to advance racial and ethnic representation in value assessments.

Researchers in the lab of Dr. Hugh D.C. Smyth have released promising results of a new method to treat SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The antiviral niclosamide, when incorporated with human lysozyme as a carrier molecule, shows potential as an effective COVID-19 treatment when delivered directly to the airways.

Live subject testing results from the Williams Lab show that dry powder inhalation could be a potent and effective delivery method of the antiviral remdesivir to treat patients affected by COVID-19.

Associate Professor Somshuvra Mukhopadhyay, M.B.B.S., Ph.D. wins the 2020 Co-op Research Excellence Award for Best Paper. The awards are presented each year by the Office of the Vice President for Research and the University Co-operative Society.

A team of researchers in the college, led by Robert O. (Bill) Williams III and Hugh D. Smyth, is investigating varying methods of drug delivery to repurpose existing drugs in order to treat and prevent serious COVID-19 virus symptoms in patients.

New research from the lab of Division of Pharmacology and Toxicology’s Somshuvra Mukhopadhyay, M.B.B.S., Ph.D. may have discovered a way to repurpose an existing drug to fight the lethality of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) infections.

Assistant Professor Dr. Somshuvra Mukhopadhyay‘s manganese regulation research was recently featured by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as one of its Papers of the Month. The findings may be useful for the treatment for parkinsonism caused by manganese poisoning.

Professor Rueben Gonzales of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for distinguished contributions to the field of alcohol research.