College of Pharmacy News

Dr. Leticia R. Moczygemba in the Division of Health Outcomes talked to ECHO, an agency that plans and implements community-wide strategies to end homelessness in Austin and Travis County, about the Interactive Care Coordination and Navigation (iCAN) program that studies how getting phones to more people living outside impacts their lives and health outcomes.

Jurata Thin Film, a startup based on the research discoveries of the College of Pharmacy's Maria Croyle, Ph.D., a professor in the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery, is listed as a finalist in the 2023 SXSW Innovation Awards in Patient Safety. Researchers in Dr. Croyle's lab have developed a peelable lightweight film that stabilizes biologics, is inexpensive and withstands extreme temperature changes. Jurata Thin Film works to bring Dr. Croyle's thin film technology to market.

The newly-created UT Seed Fund, which will provide funds to the most promising new startups built on university-owned intellectual property, will first invest in Jurata Thin Film, a startup based on the research discoveries of the College of Pharmacy's Maria Croyle, Ph.D., a professor in the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery. Founded in 2019, Jurata has revolutionized the way vaccines and biologics are manufactured, distributed, stored and delivered across the world.

Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery professor Maria A. Croyle, Ph.D. earned this year's Best Paper Award from the University Co-op Research Excellence Awards, presented by UT's Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors and the University Co-operative Society.

Division Head and Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology Karen Vasquez, Ph.D. published in the latest issues of Nature Reviews Genetics regarding repetitive elements in the human genome. Once considered "junk DNA," they are now known to adopt more than a dozen alternative DNA structures. These dynamic conformations can act as functional genomic elements involved in DNA replication and transcription, chromatin organization and genome stability.

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.

Leticia "Tish" Moczygemba, Pharm.D., Ph.D. and Andrew Wash, Pharm.D. were selected as the recipients of the 2022 grant award from the Arlyn Kloesel Endowment for Excellence in Pharmacy Practice.

Division Head and Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology Karen Vasquez, Ph.D. appeared on BBC World Service's Science in Action to talk about Z-DNA. Dr. Vasquez's research focuses on DNA damage and repair, genomic instability, gene targeting, DNA structure and cancer therapeutics.

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.

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.