College of Pharmacy News

An independent advisory committee to the FDA has determined that phenylephrine, a popular ingredient in many over-the-counter allergy and cold medicines, is ineffective in tablet form. CNN and numerous other national news outlets quote from the College of Pharmacy's Associate Dean for Healthcare Partnerships Dr. Diane Ginsburg, who serves on the committee, regarding this decision.

P4 students, Megan Yeung, Kami Johnston and Morgan Murchison co-author a peer-reviewed blog in Pulses encouraging educators to adapt to reflect the specific needs of people who use drugs and patients with substance use disorders. This blog also highlights UT Pharmacy as a U.S. leader in substance use disorder and harm reduction education for Pharm.D. students.

Tara Law from Time writes about how few pharmacies carry buprenorphine, a life-saving drug to help treat opioid use disorder (OUD). Lucas Hill, Pharm.D., BCACP, director of the college's Pharmacy Addictions Research & Medicine (PhARM) program, offers his insight on the issue, and how the DEA's crackdown of the drug puts OUD patients at risk.

A paper from UT College of Pharmacy researchers was awarded the 2021 Outstanding Paper of the Year from the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Ambulatory Care Practice Research Network. The paper investigates the availability of buprenorphine and naloxone in Texas to treat opioid use disorder.

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.

Nathan Pope, Pharm.D., BCACP, FACA has been named The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy’s new assistant dean of experiential education and will succeed Jennifer Ridings-Myhra, M.Ed., R.Ph., who plans to work with Dr. Pope through July and August to assist in the transition. The start date for this new role is effective July 1, 2021.

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.

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.

Dr. Diane Ginsburg has been accepted into the Leadership Texas 2021 class by Leadership Women, Inc. She will represent The University of Texas at Austin during Leadership Texas sessions through November 2021.

Neuroscience graduate student Cherish Taylor took home the top prize in the Graduate School’s Three Minute Thesis competition. Taylor is a graduate student in the lab of Somshuvra Mukhopadhyay, M.B.B.S., Ph.D. in the College of Pharmacy’s Division of Pharmacology and Toxicology.