College Hosts 2023 Research Forum

The Michigan Pharmacy community came together on Friday, February 9 at the College’s annual Research Forum event.

Karen Farris, PhD’93, associate dean for faculty affairs and graduate and undergraduate education, Charles R. Walgreen III Professor of Pharmacy Administration, welcomed attendees at the morning presentation session at the North Campus Research Complex. Two fellows and four graduate students presented their research, followed by three invited speakers.

“I appreciate all of our speakers and thank them for the very informative talks,” says Dr. Farris. “Each person has a different connection to the U-M College of Pharmacy, and each is leading innovative research and analytics to develop new therapies. We truly have the most incredible students, fellows, alumni, and faculty advancing human health.”

Presentations were delivered by:

• Emilio Cardenas, PhD (Garner lab) Medicinal Chemistry Fellowship Program. Cell Permeable m7GMP-Derived Inhibitors for Targeting the eIF4E/m7GpppX Interaction: An Approach to Combat Aberant Cap-Dependent Translation in Cancer
• Glory Velazquez, (Garcia lab) Medicinal Chemistry PhD Program. Antibiotic Discovery of Inhibitors of Transcription Factors-RNA Polymerase Protein-Protein Interactions in Mycobacterium tuberculosis
• Abbie Leino, (Pai lab) Clinical Pharmacy Translational Science PhD Program. Development of a Home-based Therapeutic Drug Monitoring Model
• Ciao-Sin (Chelsea) Chen, (Hertz lab) Clinical Pharmacy Translational Science PhD Program. Validation of Vitamin D Insufficiency as a Predictor of Paclitaxel-induced Peripheral Neuropathy
• Michael Lucas, PhD (Tessier lab) Pharmaceutical Sciences Fellowship Program. CD98hc-mediated Brain Delivery of Off-the-shelf IgGs
• Jill Kinzer, (A. Schwendeman lab) Pharmaceutical Sciences PhD Program. Mass spectrometry-based Characterization of Innovator and Biosimilar Antibodies

Special thank you to our invited panelists:

• Ryan Crass, PharmD, post-doctoral fellow 2017-2019, director of pharmacometrics at Apellis. A Model-informed Approach to Drug Development
• Sachin Mittal, PhD’05, executive director (head) sterile & specialty products at Merck. Parenteral Product Development: Maximizing Patient Value
• Tim Cernak, PhD, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry, College of Pharmacy, and assistant professor of chemistry, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Information Rich Strategies for Chemical Synthesis

In the afternoon, an in-person poster exhibition was held at the North Campus Research Complex’ Dining Hall. Over four hundred College of Pharmacy community members participated, with 69 posters presented by 75 students, and 40 review teams composed of faculty and PharmD students evaluating student research.

Seven PharmD students were nominated for the Kristen L. McGlone Research Award, which recognizes exceptional student-led research within the College. The award, named in memory of Kristen McGlone, PharmD’06, was established by her family, friends, and classmates.

Congratulations to this year’s winners:

• Natalie Gaines, “Access to Spanish Language Medication Labels among Latinx Adults with Limited English Proficiency.” Advisor: Beatriz Manzor Mitrzyk, PharmD’92
• Tk Nguyen, “Factors Associated with Recovery in Anthracycline-Induced Cardiomyopathy.” Advisor: Jasmine Luzum, PharmD, PhD
• Jingting Wang, “Pharmacokinetics of Midazolam in Neonates.” Advisor: Haojie Zhu, PhD

“This yearly event has become a point of pride for the College by highlighting all of our outstanding research endeavors,” adds Dr. Farris. “Congratulations to the award winners and thank you to all who presented, attended, and helped make our 2023 Research Forum event a success.”