College of Pharmacy News

The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy earns accolades for Best in Community Engagement, Best in Health Innovation, Best Project in Progress, Best in Visual and top 3 for People’s Choice Award at the Interprofessional Health Showcase 2023.

A new publication finds evidence that the repurposed drug apremilast suppressed alcohol consumption in people who drink excessively. The research is coauthored by Research Assistant Professor Regina Mangieri, Ph.D. in the Division of Pharmacology and Toxicology and Heather Aziz, MS, RLATg who works in the Mangieri Lab.

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.

This year, college welcomes Daniel San Miguel and Adriana Vargus through the BOOT program, providing a generous 12-month stipend plus paid tuition for the first academic year in order to to increase the recruitment, retention and preparation of trainees from diverse backgrounds.

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.

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.

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.

Division of Pharmacology and Toxicology researcher Pallavi Kompella, Ph.D. has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to research at the Biomedical Research Institute of Málaga in Spain.

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.