College of Pharmacy News

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) has released its grant research funding awards for the upcoming year. All three awarded research projects at The University of Texas at Austin involve College of Pharmacy faculty.

Two of the college's distinguished faculty in the Division of Pharmacotherapy were recommended for promotion by President Hartzell. Dr. Kelly R. Reveles will assume the rank of associate professor and Dr. Kirk Evoy will become a clinical associate professor. Both promotions go into effect September 1, 2022.

The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy moved up in several research funding categories, as reported in the newly-released rankings from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP). The college rose to #8 nationally in total research funding during the 2019-2020 fiscal year, compared to #9 in 2018-2019.

Two of the College of Pharmacy’s distinguished faculty were recently promoted due to their outstanding accomplishments in research, outreach and education. Dr. Kimberly Nixon of the Division of Pharmacology and Toxicology will assume the rank of professor and Dr. Lucas G. Hill of the Division of Pharmacy Practice will become a clinical associate professor.

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.

An update from Dean M. Lynn Crismon regarding the College of Pharmacy’s transition to remote learning and efforts to learn, research, graduate, and stay healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

College of Pharmacy Professor Karen M. Vasquez, Ph.D. recently collaborated on a research paper exploring the mechanisms involved in DNA structure-induced genetic instability in human disease. “Mechanisms of genetic instability caused by (CGG)n repeats in an experimental mammalian system” recently published in Nature, and includes co-authors Artem V. Kononenko, Thomas Ebersole, and Sergei M. Mirkin from Tufts University.

Dr. Christopher R. Frei was declared the College of Pharmacy’s 2018 Educator of the Year Award winner. The announcement was one of several teaching awards to college faculty announced recently at the student-sponsored awards ceremony.

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.