PharmacymattersUniversity of Mississippi school of pharMacy

A Mother’s GenerosityInspires ScholarshipPage 10

Dedication to ServiceNets Alumni AwardPage 11

We’re Passionateabout Helping StudentsPages 12, 13, 28

Improving CommunityPharmaciesPage 22

FaLL2012

What do these men have in common?story Page 4

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It’s amazing how quickly a year can fly by. I could not be more thrilled about what the School of Pharmacy has accomplished since I made this school my home. I am continuously in awe of the talent, passion and motivation exhibited by members of our pharmacy family.

You might have noticed something a little different about this edition of Phar-macy Matters. We have updated the design and opted for a fresher, newer look. I am excited to share the new design with you and hope you like it as much as I do. We have also redesigned the school’s logo to reflect that of the university’s, and our centers and institutes have adopted similar logos. You can see our new logo on the back of this magazine.

I am proud to announce that our professional degree program has been reac-credited for eight years. Our program is of the highest caliber, and our reaccredi-tation affirms that. A great deal of work went into the application process, and I applaud all those who contributed to it.

It’s been a pleasure getting to know everyone involved with the School of Phar-macy. One of my first priorities as incoming dean was to meet individually with all faculty members and research scientists on both of our campuses, which I have now done. We also held a retreat with our staff members and solicited feedback from these key members of our team. These wonderfully enthusiastic and creative individuals shared some great ideas with us for improving our communications, operations and their professional development. My hat is off to them!

And our students … Wow! I have so enjoyed meeting and engaging our talented, top-notch students. I may be prejudiced, but I wholeheartedly believe we have the best students in America!

I have also continued to visit our alums in pharmacies across the state and na-tion. Engaging our graduates and other pharmacy practitioners has been exhilarat-ing. To date, I’ve been in about 60 practice sites, and I hope to visit yours as well.

Our “research visioning” process was a huge success, and for the first time in the school’s history, we have a Research Mission Statement. The process helped us identify our research strengths and determine ways that we can collaborate with researchers at the UM Medical Center as well as the entire university.

This fall, we inducted a record 112 students into our professional program. The students had a higher average GPA and PCAT score than those entering last fall. It was an honor to mark this group’s transition into our professional curriculum, and I will look back fondly on my first white coat ceremony at the University of Mississippi.

The School of Pharmacy has officially begun Phase II of the Thad Cochran Re-search Center. The massive construction project will add almost 100,000 square feet to the center, greatly increase our school’s footprint on the Oxford campus and nearly double our research space. The project should be completed in 2014.

Our social media pages are filled with information about our day-to-day activi-ties, and I encourage you to “like us” on Facebook, and “follow us” on Pinterest and Twitter. There is much more news to come, so please be sure to keep reading Phar-macy Matters. After observing all of the wonderful achievements that our school has made in my first year, I can’t wait to see what happens in the next!

Happy Holidays!

David D. Allen, R.Ph., Ph.D.

DeaN's message

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4 The Many Faces of Larry Wamble Pharmacist, artist, orator displays gift for making people laugh BY BARBARA LAGO

8 Pet Project Alumna shares passion for

vet pharmacy with students BY BARBARA LAGO

16 Taking It to the Next Level $10 million grant to expand capacity

for natural products neuroscience BY ERIN PARSONS GARRETT

17 A Novel Idea Scientists develop new

method to deliver THC BY ERIN PARSONS GARRETT

18 New Hope for Addicts Scientific quest may one day

make withdrawal endurable BY BARBARA LAGO

Contents Dr. David D. AllenDean,Executive Director of Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Dr. Alicia BouldinAssociate Dean of Outcomes Assessment and Learning Advancement

Dr. Charles D. HuffordAssociate Dean for Research

and Graduate Programs

Dr. Leigh Ann RossAssociate Dean for Clinical Affairs and Chair of Pharmacy Practice

Dr. Marvin C. WilsonAssociate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs

Ms. Chelsea BennettAssistant Dean of Student Services

Ms. Beverly M. ButtsAssistant Dean of Administration

Dr. Stephen J. CutlerChair of Medicinal Chemistry

Dr. Daneel FerreiraChair of Pharmacognosy

Dr. Michael A. RepkaChair of Pharmaceutics

Dr. Donna S. West-StrumChair of Pharmacy Administration

Dr. Anthony J. VerlangieriInterim Chair of Pharmacology

Dr. Marc SlatteryCoordinator of Environmental Toxicology Research Program

INSTITUTES & CENTERS

Dr. Benjamin F. Banahan IIIDirector of Center for Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management

Dr. Michael A. RepkaDirector of Pii Center for Pharmaceutical Technology

Dr. Larry A. WalkerDirector of National Center for Natural Products Research

Stay in touch with the School of Pharmacy! Update your contact information using this QR code:

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The many faces of Larry WamblePhotography by Robert JordanDesign by Stefanie Goodwiller

oN the coVer

White Coats

Clinical TrialsHepatitis C Study

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Larry Wamble (BSPh 71) and his wife were hopping from one Oxford nightspot to the next, sam-pling the music and visiting with ac-quaintances on a brisk November day in 1995. While huffing their way up the steep hill from the Gin to Proud Lar-ry’s and the Oxford Square, she said, “Wouldn’t it be great if all our favorite nightspots were in one block? It would be ‘the perfect block.’”

The comment sparked Wamble, who has “always been able to draw things, even from the time someone put that first fat crayon in my hand,” to incor-porate all those lively landmarks into a piece of art titled “The Perfect Block.”

Reflecting a sense of humor then resulting in more than 40 speaking en-gagements a year, Wamble printed be-neath the line of popular storefronts a trademarked slogan he came up with to describe how he and his college buddies celebrated foot-ball weekends in Oxford: “We may not win every game, but we ain’t never lost a party.”

Wamble asked a Memphis printer who did the fliers pro-moting his speaking business to make numerous copies of

that “first Oxford print.” It sold well and was quickly followed by another, launching a third career for the former pharmacist.

Since then, Wamble has created more than 30 different prints, many of which depict nightspots or landmarks of the Southeastern Conference and cities such as New Orleans, Mem-phis, Nashville, Seattle, Boston and Philadelphia.

One of his latest “cityscapes” was re-quested by Tyson Drug Co. owner Bob Lomenick (BSPh 77) of Holly Springs.

“I’ve been commissioned to do many large cities, but I also find it very special to do smaller ones,” Wamble said. “People from small cities seem to take more pride in their communities.”

Following Hurricane Katrina, he created a print of the lighthouse that

stood on the beach in Biloxi, Miss., to raise funds for relief efforts. Many sold for $1,200 each.

He also created several “pharmacy” prints to capture the essence of his “chosen” profession. He donated two of them to the Ole Miss School of Phar-macy, where they hang in the newly re-modeled office of Dean David D. Allen.

“I was honored he asked for them,” Wamble said.

“I could tell by his facial expres-sion and body language that he was not just honored, he was extremely touched,” Allen said. “I’m the one who is honored to have his prints hang-ing in my office. Plus, it’s really fun to share their origins with visitors when they ask about them.”

As a youth growing up in Osceola, Ark., Wamble had a paper route,

Pharmacist, artist, orator displays gift for

making people laugh

The Many Faces of Larry Wamble

As a youth growing up in Osceola, Ark., Wamble had a paper route, sacked groceries and spent hours after school working in a local drugstore. After attending Ole Miss, he returned to that same store to practice community pharmacy.

by Barbara LagoUM Photos: Robert Jordan, Nathan Latil

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sacked groceries and spent hours after school working in a local drug-store. After attending Ole Miss, he re-turned to that same store to practice community pharmacy.

He served as president of the Ar-kansas Pharmacists Association in 1981-82, as well as numerous com-mittees of the National Community Pharmacists Association. Awards rec-ognizing his work followed: Arkansas Community Pharmacist of the Year in ’89 and APA’s Guy Newcomb Legisla-tive Leadership Award in ’91.

The hats he wore gradually ex-tended past the pharmacy field, as he added posts such as city council-man, police commissioner, justice of the peace, political action committee head, bank director, university advi-sory board member and “frustrated golfer” to his resume. Just for fun, he tacked on “master of ceremonies” to that list, taking the microphone when-ever groups needed him.

The APA called in 1992, when it wanted someone to emcee a break-fast it was sponsoring at the NCPA convention in Seattle. There, Wamble delivered several of his folksy, down-home stories, laughing almost as long and hard as his audience members. Typical of the yarns he spun back then was one about Wendell and Claude Earl Stovall from Osceola.

“Wendell and Claude Earl, now, they don’t get out much. They did get over to Memphis for a weekend, though, and even stayed in the Peabody Hotel. The hotel clerk shoved the registra-tion card across the desk for Claude Earl to sign. He took the pen, made an X and then circled it. The hotel clerk looked at it for a moment and said, ‘Pardon me, sir. We have a gentleman who comes here every now and then and signs his card with an X, but I have

never seen a circled X before. What does that mean?’

“Claude Earl leaned over and said, ‘You don’t understand, man. When I’m staying in a fancy hotel in a big city, I don’t ever use my real name.’”

After seeing the audience erupt in laughter many times as Wamble de-livered his humorous country tales, the president of a state pharmacist association asked him for his busi-ness card.

Wamble’s prints, which hang in Dean Allen’s office, depict nostalgic items associated with pharmacy practice.

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“When I gave him my retail phar-macist’s card, the man said, ‘No, I want your speaker’s card,’” Wamble said. Six other state associations also asked him to be the keynote speaker at their state conventions.

Thinking “it would be a hoot to go on a couple of road trips,” Wamble accepted those invitations and, within a year, was speaking at more than 40 engagements annually.

That’s due, in part, to signing on with the Washington Speakers Bureau in Alexandria, Va., which was then looking for an “American humorist” to add to its list of personalities (e.g., for-mer President Ronald Reagan, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, etc.) to promote as keynote speak-ers. A bureau representative called Wamble less than 24 hours after he left a videotape of one of his conven-tion talks.

“I was the first ‘no-name speaker’ put in their book,” Wamble said, sporting a wide grin.

He left the pharmacy profession in late 1993 to pursue public speaking full time.

“Over the years, I’ve met CEOs of large corporations, stood at the top of an Olympic ski jump at Lake Placid and played the top 100 golf courses in the nation,” Wamble said. “I’ve spoken to audiences as small as 100 and as large as 5,000 in everything from intimate to coliseum-type venues.”

One of the most memo-rable was Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.

“My daddy worked for the National Life and Ac-cident Insurance Co. for more than 40 years,” he said. “Its slogan was ‘We shield millions,’ which provided the call let-ters for the radio station

it owned, WSM in Nashville. It also owned the Grand Ole Opry, so my father took me there several times.”

When Wamble finally found himself on the same stage once graced by the likes of Little Jimmy Dickens and Minnie Pearl, whom he saw as a child, he thought, “I sure hope that, some-where, Berlin (his late father) and Ber-nice (his late mother) know what their baby boy is doing tonight.”

Today, Wamble accepts only 10 to 20 speaking engagements each year, and those are for “repeat customers” or at resorts where his wife, Connie, can visit with him.

“I don’t hustle them as much as I used to,” he said. “I like to be closer to home. There’s nothing lonelier than being sleepless in a motel room by yourself in a strange city at 3 a.m.”

Plus, he is more content pursuing his art. He has sold thousands of his art prints, but he has never entered any of them in prize competitions. He said that’s because it’s impossible to choose from among the many he has created.

Wamble, who made Oxford his per-manent home in 2006, has touched thousands of people throughout his pharmacy, speaking and art careers.

“Being a community pharmacist is all about people,” he said. “You come to care about your patients. You re-joice with them when they have new babies, and you grieve with them when their loved ones aren’t doing well or pass away.”

In a sense, the same is true of public speaking.

“There is a message at the end of every speech, so I’ve touched a lot of people that way, too,” he said. “It’s re-warding when a room erupts in laugh-ter. Audience response, and being on stage, is addictive.”

Just as heady, he said, was finding himself “one of the three guys repre-senting the pharmacy profession” dur-ing a White House visit with President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. He attributed the visit to having served as head of a political action committee while “Bill was governor of Arkansas.”

His cache of fond memories in-cludes several from his days as an Ole Miss pharmacy student.

“During my first year, I was asked to come to the dean’s office,” he said. “I was scared to death and was won-dering if I had done something wrong or was failing a class. But when I got there, Dean [Charlie] Hartman put that big ol’ fat cigar he liked to smoke in an ashtray on his desk and asked, ‘How are you? Are you doing OK?’

“It blew me away that the man who was so busy putting our pharmacy school on the map took an interest in me and would ask if there was any-thing he could do to help. I’ve since learned that was just [what people were like at] Ole Miss and what makes you fall in love with the place.”

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In a state that has the highest mortality rate in the na-tion from cardiovascular disease, or CVD, the School of Phar-macy did its part this fall to assist with prevention by conduct-ing community health fairs in key areas across the state.

The September fairs, which were hosted through the com-bined efforts of student pharmacists and faculty members, featured blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose screenings, medication reviews and a health risk assess-ment on each patient. Community pharmacies in Batesville, Clarksdale, Hernando, Jackson, Vicksburg and Yazoo City held the fairs.

“With so many of our citizens impacted by CVD, it is im-perative that we empower patients to make decisions that will prevent heart attacks, strokes or death from CVD,” said Leigh Ann Ross, associate dean for clinical affairs and chair of pharmacy practice. “Many of the risk factors that lead to CVD can be prevented or controlled, such as high blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking, diabetes and obe-sity, and pharmacists can play an important role in this pre-vention effort.”

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores awarded a Million Hearts Team Up, Pressure Down public education grant of $5,000 to the school to support the health fairs. The Million Hearts initiative is a national campaign to pre-vent heart disease. The school was chosen as one of only 15 from a group of nearly 70 applicants.

“The School of Pharmacy is committed to improving the health of Mississippians,” Ross said. “Our project, which is part of the Million Hearts campaign, is focused on im-proving patient outcomes related to diabetes and CVD by

addressing the ‘ABCS’ of heart attack and stroke prevention (A1c [average blood glucose levels] and appropriate aspirin use, blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking cessation). This grant provided an opportunity to identify additional patients at risk for CVD in these targeted communities who might benefit from pharmacy medication therapy manage-ment services.”

Laura Luther, a fourth-year professional student, helped coordinate the screenings and participated in blood pres-sure, cholesterol and blood glucose screenings, as well as patient counseling.

“As a student pharmacist, I hope to be able to meet the needs of Missis-sippi’s underserved population,” Luther said. “Cardiovascular disease is the lead-ing cause of death in Mississippi and, as a

result, is worthy of increased prevention efforts. This was a unique opportunity to provide education as well as clinical services to Mississippians who have limited access to care, and I was excited to be a part of a project that will help im-prove the health of individuals across the state.”

The Million Hearts initiative aims to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes over the next five years.

Hearts for Change

Million Hearts grant enables students to help prevent CVD

The School of Pharmacy is committed to improving the health of Mississippians. Our project, which is part of the Million Hearts campaign, is focused on improving patient outcomes related to diabetes and CVD.”

—Leigh Ann Ross, associate dean for clinical affairs“

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Many dog owners don’t know that a common artificial sweet-ener used in chewing gum, toothpaste and medicines for humans causes hy-poglycemia and liver failure if used in drugs given to their loving canine companions. They are also surprised to learn that therapeutic doses of thyroid medications are higher (not lower) for dogs than for people.

Likewise, many cat owners don’t know that Tylenol will kill their cuddly, oft-purring feline friends.

“The physiology of dogs, cats and other veterinary species is different from humans, so [those species] ab-sorb, distribute and metabolize medi-cations differently,” said Dinah G. Jordan (BSPh 72, PharmD 98), chief of pharmacy services and clinical professor of pharmacy at Mississippi State University’s College of Veteri-nary Medicine.

A dog owner herself, Jordan has made it her mission to educate phar-macists and veterinarians about these and other unique aspects of veteri-nary pharmacy practice.

She has written an online veteri-nary pharmacy course for pharmacy students and an online continuing education program for practicing pharmacists and technicians. For pharmacists, she also has developed standards for a board-certification program in veterinary pharmacy. Those who become certified become “diplomates” of the International Col-lege of Veterinary Pharmacy.

“I believe pharmacy schools need to step up to the plate and train pharma-cists in veterinary pharmacy practice,” Jordan said. “That’s because more pharmacists are being placed in vet practices, chain pharmacies are of-fering veterinary pharmacy products, and community pharmacists are filling vet prescriptions.”

Until a few years ago, veterinarians dispensed most of their own medica-tions, but vet practices have evolved, as has the veterinary drug market, she said. “The market can’t keep up with all the specialties, and vets are relying on more human-approved drugs. Plus, the cost of stocking human drugs is very high.”

Thanks to Jordan, the UM School of Pharmacy is offering a course on vet-erinary pharmacy this fall. Students taking the course will receive 2 hours of academic credit.

“The school is indeed grateful to Dr. Jordan for offering this elective to our professional students,” said Marvin C. Wilson, associate dean for academic and student affairs.

Between the course and an ad-vanced five-week (40 hours per week) practice experience, or rotation, that senior students may take at Jordan’s MSU practice site, Wil-son said that students interested in pursuing veterinary practice

Alumna shares passion for vet pharmacy with students

In addition to gaining practical experience in veterinary pharmacy, UM students may now elect to take a course on the subject taught by Dinah G. Jordan.

by Barbara Lago

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after graduation may obtain 7 credit hours of exposure to this emerging area of specialty practice.

“We are so appreciative to Dr. Jor-dan for not only her extensive service contributions to the profession but even more so to her alma mater,” Wil-son said.

An ICVP diplomate, Jordan has pur-sued her education and service mis-sion through numerous avenues. She is co-author of the chapter on veteri-nary pharmacy in the 22nd edition of Remington: The Science and Practice of Pharmacy (to be published next month by Pharmaceutical Press) and is a contributor to the Veterinary Drug Handbook, a leading drug information resource for practicing veterinarians.

She presents continuing education programs at state, regional, national and international profes-sional pharmacy and vet-erinary meetings and has published several journal articles about veterinary pharmacy.

Jordan also has served as president of the Soci-ety of Veterinary Hospital Pharmacists, as an adviser on the U.S. Pharmacopeia’s

Veterinary Information Expert Com-mittee and a member of the Ameri-can Veterinary Medical Association’s Council on Biologics and Therapeutic Agents’ Subcommittee on Prescribing and Dispensing.

Recognizing her outstanding service to veterinary pharmacy, the American College of Veterinary Pharmacy pre-sented its inaugural Earl W. (Bill) Brad-ley Award to Jordan in 2007.

Jordan also is the recipient of the MSU College of Veterinary Medi-cine’s Dean’s Pegasus Award for ex-cellence in clinical service, research and extension; the UM pharmacy school’s Alumna of the Year award and Distinguished Alumni Award; and the Mississippi Pharmacists Associa-tion’s Bowl of Hygeia award for com-munity service.

She and her husband, John (BSPh 72), a community pharmacist, have a son, Jay (JD 1999), an attorney on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and two granddaughters, Lily and Anna Claire. Two “wonderful” (i.e., spoiled rotten) Maltese — Sir Dulymus (“Duly”) and General Lothario (“Lo”) — complete the Jordans’ immediate family.

“The neat thing about Jay’s gradu-ation is that we were able to walk together in the spring commence-ment ceremony in the Grove,” said his mother, who had finished work on her Pharm.D. in fall 1998. “It was a very special day for the Jordan family.”

The Jordans have spent numerous other special days on the Oxford cam-pus. This past summer, for example, Dinah attended the Ladies Football Forum, then accompanied her 5-year-

old granddaughter, Lily, to cheerleader camp.

Despite working for UM’s in-state rival for more than 25 years, “We absolutely love Ole Miss,” she said.

Sir Dulymus (“Duly”) and General Lothario (“Lo”).Dinah and John Jordan

by Barbara Lago

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Margaret Murphree was a firm believer in the importance of education.

“My mother believed in education, both as a means of improving one’s self and as a way to get ahead in life,” said Robert Murphree, Margaret’s son and a University of Mis-sissippi alumnus. “I largely owe my own education to my mother’s persistence and encouragement.”

Robert Murphree, a Jackson attorney, and his wife, Melis-sa, recently donated $25,000 to create the Margaret Haaga Murphree Scholarship Endowment to provide need-based support to students pursuing degrees in the UM School of Pharmacy. The endowment honors Robert’s mother, who died in 2008 at the age of 91.

“This gift will provide numerous opportunities for phar-macy students at Ole Miss,” said David D. Allen, the phar-macy school’s dean. “The Murphrees’ continued support of the university is a testimony to their character, and I am inspired by their dedication. We are extremely grateful to them for their generosity.”

Giving to the School of Pharmacy was a natural fit for the Murphrees. Their daughter, Catherine, is enrolled in the second year of UM’s professional pharmacy program.

“I chose pharmacy because I really liked chemistry in high school,” Catherine said. “I kept pursuing it, and it turned out to be the right fit for me. Pharmacy is really interesting, so that keeps me going when the studying gets hard.”

The Murphree family has a long history with the univer-sity. Robert’s father attended the School of Business Ad-ministration. Two of his brothers pursued degrees at UM, as well as the Murphrees’ older daughter Caroline.

“I want to give back to the university in any way that I can because of the wonderful education it provided to so many members of my family,” Melissa said. “We want to help stu-dents come to Ole Miss who might otherwise not be able to do so.”

Margaret Murphree was a graduate of the Mississippi State College for Women (now Mississippi University for

Women) but was an avid supporter of Ole Miss. She met her husband, Thomas, while they were both working for the Works Progress Administration, which was created to help provide economic relief to citizens during the Great Depression. They married in 1940 and had seven children.

“The most overriding quality in my mother’s life was her generosity,” Robert said. “She insisted that we set up a schol-arship in our father’s name because he graduated from the business school. My brothers and I created the Thomas Mar-tin Murphree Sr. Scholarship Endowment in 2009.”

During a UM interview before her death, Margaret talked about rearing her children.

“Education has always been very important to us,” she said. “When the children were growing up, we came to-gether at the dinner table three times a day for meals. Our family had very lively discussions around that dinner table. I took the children to the public library every week. I wanted them to have inquiring minds.”

Robert is certain that his parents would be proud of his family’s continued Ole Miss support.

“Now we have a business scholarship that honors my father and a pharmacy scholarship that honors my mother,” he said. “If they were both here, I think they would heartily approve.”

The Margaret Haaga Murphree Scholarship Endowment is open to receive gifts from individuals and organizations. To contribute, send a check with the fund noted to the Uni-versity of Mississippi Foundation, P.O. Box 249, University, MS 38677; or contact Raina McClure at 662-915-6967 or rmcclure@olemiss.edu.

Dean David D. Allen (left) thanks Melissa Murphree, Catherine Murphree and Robert Murphree for their endowment.

Paying It ForwardA mother’s belief in education inspires scholarship in her name

The most overriding quality in my mother’s life was her generosity.”

—Robert Murphree, alumnus“

During Homecoming 2012, Jillian Foster of Oxford received the Outstanding Young Alumni Award, one of the University of Mississippi Alumni Association’s highest annual honors, and was recognized at a campus reception and dinner.

Recipients of the award demonstrate exem-plary leadership in their careers and dedication to the university during the first 15 years of their alumni status.

Foster (Pharm.D. 04, MBA 08) said she felt both humble and proud to receive the award.

“Any service I am involved with is because I gen-uinely enjoy doing it,” she said. “From my first se-mester at Ole Miss, I have been inspired to serve in ways that magnify the strengths of the university and School of Pharmacy and provide constructive feedback on how [they] can continue to improve.”

Foster is director of pharmacy at Baptist Memorial Hos-pital-North Mississippi in Oxford, where she leads a team of 38 employees in maintaining quality care for patients. She is a preceptor for UM’s pharmacy students and recently received one of 16 national grants to establish a pharmacy residency training program.

Besides earning her Pharm.D. and MBA, Foster complet-ed a Health Policy Fellowship with U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in 2005. She also completed pharmacy practice and special-ty residencies with an emphasis in pharmacy management and administration at North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, where she once oversaw the hospital’s pharmacy in-surance benefit plan and managed the employee pharmacy.

“There is no one more deserving of UM’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award than Jillian,” said David D. Allen, dean of the pharmacy school. “Since her graduation, she has accumulated many outstanding accomplishments and given back so much to the univer-sity and the School of Pharmacy.”

Foster has chaired the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ Council on Public Policy and served

terms on ASHP’s New Practitioner’s Leadership advisory committee. She was president of the Mis-sissippi Society of

Health-System Pharmacists and is on the Mississippi Phar-macist Association’s executive committee.

Named both MSHP’s and MPhA’s Outstanding Young Pharmacist of the Year, Foster is president of the Ole Miss Pharmacy Alumni Chapter, a member of the Oxford Rotary Club and Delta Gamma Alumnae Chapter, a volunteer at the Oxford Medical Ministries Clinic and teaches kindergar-ten choir at North Oxford Baptist Church.

Foster said that it is an honor to be asked to serve.“If [people] value my work, then I am thrilled to continue

to help out in any way I can,” she said. “There is nothing outstanding about me, but I have been given outstanding opportunities and took advantage of many of them.”

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A Passion for Service

Hospital pharmacist receives UM’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award

Jillian Foster

Dec. 2-6 American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Midyear Meeting, Las Vegas

Jan. 31 Pharmacy Day, Jackson

Feb. 9-12 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Interim Meeting, Rio Grande, Puerto Rico

Mar. 1-4 American Pharmacists Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles

Mar. 22-23 Pharmacy Alumni Weekend, Oxford

Apr. 12 Charles W. Hartman Lecture, Oxford

Apr. 15-18 International Conference on the Science of Botanicals, Oxford

May 11 Commencement

aLUmNI caLeNDar oF eVeNts

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Chelsea Bennett, UM alumna, has been hired by the School of Pharmacy as its new assistant dean of student services.

“My main goal in this new position is to support our students in every way, both academically and personally, and to help them reach their goals while making great memories here at the university,” Bennett said.

Originally from Grenada, Bennett began working with the school June 1. She received both her bachelor’s (psychology) and master’s (counselor education) degrees from the univer-sity and is pursuing a doctoral degree in higher education.

Prior to working for the pharmacy school, Bennett was assistant director

for operations in the univer-sity’s Office of Enrollment Services.

“Chelsea has been a won-derful addition to the School of Pharmacy family,” said Dean David D. Allen. “Her dedication is readily apparent, and she has developed some great ideas for engaging our current and prospec-tive students.”

A perfect example, he said, is the school’s recent Wellness Week program, which she created and coordinated.

Wellness is one of the five support services offered through the pharmacy school’s Office of Student Services. The weeklong October event provided

many opportunities for students to ex-perience different forms of wellness.

“The purpose of Wellness Week is to promote all aspects of wellness in our student population,” Bennett said. “It can be so easy for our students to get caught up in the rigors of the cur-riculum, so we want to make sure that they know how important it is to take time for themselves. We also want our students to be aware of all the re-sources that are available to them on and off campus.”

Bennett has a number of responsi-bilities related to pharmacy students. Some of them include advising pre-pharmacy students, coordinating as-semblies, enhancing career awareness and recruiting prospective students.

Bennett said she has thoroughly enjoyed working with the pharmacy school.

“I most enjoy my interactions with the students, working alongside fan-tastic School of Pharmacy faculty and staff, and watching our students de-velop as professionals,” she said.

“Our students are so hardworking and dedicated to their studies and to their chosen profession, but they are also incredibly well-rounded, stepping into leadership and service roles with-in the school and across the university. They are true leaders.”

At Your ServiceNew assistant dean displays passion for helping students

Chelsea Bennett

Students hand out healthy snacks as part of Wellness Week.

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Weeklong event raises awareness of wellness The School of Pharmacy hosted its first Wellness Week Oct. 1-5. Designed to raise awareness of wellness among pharmacy students, the weeklong event provided opportunities to sample everything from Zumba, yoga and meditation to healthy snacks and stress-management techniques.

“Wellness is so important to the School of Pharmacy student body,” said Lacey Gilmore, student body president-elect. “We are very focused on our studies, and sometimes we forget to take care of ourselves. We have to find good ways to deal with stress and stay active as well as make good grades. Another important point is that the community will look to us as pharmacists to set a good example of how to live a healthy life.”

Wellness is one of the five support services of-fered through the pharmacy school’s Office of Student Services. Chelsea Bennett, the school’s new assistant dean of student services, came up with the idea for Wellness Week, using a “wellness wheel” that incorporates physical, emotional, spiritual, so-cial and occupational wellness as inspiration.

“I knew that this was something that we could expound upon,” Bennett said. “I’ve been solicit-ing feedback from indi-vidual students and from our student executive council and various stu-dent organizations. They had some great ideas for programming.”

Many of Gilmore’s class-mates took part in the activities.

“There is so much to learn about dealing with stress, eat-ing healthy and exercising,” she said. “I encouraged every-one to go to at least one event and to try something new.”

To Better Health

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A record-breaking 112 students received their white coats during an August School of Pharmacy ceremo-ny at the Ford Center for Performing Arts. The ceremony, a decade-old tradition, marked completion of the students’ pre-pharmacy curriculum and entry into the first year of the school’s professional program (PY1).

“The white coat is the universal symbol of those who work in the health-related professions,” said Dean David D. Allen. “Our annual white coat ceremony is a way of for-mally recognizing and fostering students’ commitment to professionalism.”

The number of students (112) receiving white coats was up by 33 students over last fall and by 48 students over fall 2010. As a group, the entering PY1 students also had a higher average GPA (3.36) and higher average PCAT score (408) than those entering last fall.

“This entire group of students is exceptionally talented and intellectually accomplished,” Allen said. “It is an honor for me and our faculty to work with them.”

When added to the number of students returning for their second, third and fourth years of the professional program, the 112 PY1 students pushed the program’s, and the school’s, total enrollment to an all-time high. Neither UM nor pharma-cy school administrators are surprised by the rise in numbers.

“At the University of Mississippi, we are extremely proud of our School of Pharmacy,” said UM Provost Morris H. Stocks, while delivering the ceremony’s keynote address. “The school is not only recognized as a truly outstanding program within the confines of our university, it is also recognized

The white coat ceremony marks students’ entry into the first year of pharmacy’s professional program.

A Cause for CelebrationWhite coat ceremony honors record number of students

Dean David D. Allen (left) and student body president-elect Lacey Gilmore help Ellison Brown of Terry don his white coat.

“Our annual white coat ceremony is a way of formally recognizing and fostering students’ commitment to professionalism.

—Dean David D. Allen”

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Catherine Black and Rose-mary Call are the most recent gradu-ates of the School of Pharmacy’s Com-munity Pharmacy Residency program, which is designed to advance Doctor of Pharmacy graduates’ patient care, patient care services, practice manage-ment, and research and teaching skills.

Black and Call, who obtained their Pharm.D. degrees from Ole Miss in May 2011, completed the residency

program’s single year of postgradu-ate training this summer and received certificates of program completion at a graduation luncheon in their honor.

“Our residency program provides opportunities for conducting research, precepting Pharm.D. students, educat-ing patients with chronic diseases and providing individualized medication therapy management in community pharmacy settings,” said Leigh Ann

Ross, associate dean for clinical affairs and chair of pharmacy practice.

After graduating this summer, Black began putting her advanced MTM skills to use at a Nashville-area Wal-greens, while Call began another resi-dency at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, where she is pursuing her interest in medication use safety.

The pharmacy school created the Community Pharmacy Residency pro-gram four years ago because of the growing number of Pharm.D. gradu-ates seeking opportunities to further develop their skills. Those enrolled in the program complete community pharmacy, ambulatory care and com-munity-based rural health practice ex-periences. They also must complete a research project and participate in the pharmacy school’s teaching program.

Lauren Compton, the residency program’s first graduate in 2010, is a clinical consultant with Catalyst RX in Jackson. The program’s 2011 graduates — Meagan Minor Brown and Courtney Davis — are clinical assistant profes-sors in the pharmacy school’s Depart-ment of Pharmacy Practice.

Catherine Black (second from left) and Rosemary Call (second from right), the most recent graduates of the pharmacy school’s community residency program, were honored with a luncheon hosted by program administrators (from left) Justin Sherman, Laurie Warrington, Leigh Ann Ross and Lauren Bloodworth.

nationally for its achievements and for the high quality of professional education it provides to our students.”

During his address, Stocks told the PY1 students that, “according to most metrics,” the pharmacy school has been ranked among the top five pharmacy schools in the country, and that they are “privileged to be a part of an academic institution where change, initiative, leadership and passion for service are encouraged.”

One of those metrics includes the nation’s fifth highest pass rate on the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination.

“This is a great accomplishment for our faculty and stu-dents, and it’s a testament to the format and content of our curriculum and to our admissions procedures,” said Marvin

C. Wilson, associate dean for academic and student affairs.As part of the ceremony, students took the Pledge of

Professionalism and received a copy of the book The Good Pharmacist. After receiving their white coats, pledges and books, Allen told the students that pharmacists “are among the most trusted and respected professionals in America today,” then admonished them to “uphold that trust and re-spect” throughout their pharmacy careers.

Stocks asked the students to make a personal pledge to use their knowledge and strength, caring and compassion, and courage and conviction “to do all that you can to be worthy of the sacred trust that your patients and our society place in you.”

Practice Makes PerfectCommunity pharmacy residency program graduates third class

The University of Mississippi and its School of Phar-macy have received a five-year, $10 million Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence, or COBRE, grant from the National Institutes of Health.

“This is an exciting time for the School of Pharmacy and the University of Mississippi,” said David D. Allen, the pharmacy school’s dean. “The CO-BRE grant will allow us to further our mission of researching natural prod-ucts neuroscience. It is a wonderful acknowledgement of what we have achieved so far in our program.”

Taking iT

$10 million grant to expand capacity for natural products neuroscience

LeveLTo The nexT

by Erin Parsons Garrett

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An innovative delivery meth-od for tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive constituent of Canna-bis, is being developed at the Univer-sity of Mississippi.

School of Pharmacy faculty mem-bers Michael A. Repka, Soumyajit Ma-jumdar and Mahmoud A. ElSohly have developed a transmucosal THC patch to overcome problems related to tak-ing the drug in pill form. The patch is administered above the gum line.

“The main issue with oral THC de-livery is that the drug gets metabo-lized before it reaches the blood-stream, resulting in a lot of variability in the dosage patients receive,” said Repka, chair of pharmaceutics and director of the Pii Center for Phar-maceutical Technology. “Delivering through the oral mucosa gives better

Michael A. Repka displays a transmucosal patch, placed just above the gumline (top, center) of this set of false teeth.

A Novel IdeaScientists develop new method to deliver THC

COBRE is one of the main components of NIH’s Institutional Develop-ment Award program, which is designed to broaden funding for biomedical and behavioral research. COBRE centers strengthen capabilities for bio-medical research by developing related faculty research through support of a multidisciplinary center led by a principal investigator.

The grant is for the second phase of UM’s Center of Research Excellence in Natural Products Neuroscience, or CORE-NPN, which was first funded as a COBRE center in 2006. CORE-NPN’s mission is to bring together a number of researchers with complementary backgrounds and skills to conduct investigations related to effects of natural products on the central nervous system.

“UM is committed to continually enhancing its biomedical research ex-pertise and infrastructure,” said Alice M. Clark, vice chancellor for research and sponsored programs. “This project supports that goal by providing funds to help our researchers develop their ideas more fully and compete successfully for merit-based, peer-reviewed competitive funding from NIH and other major sponsors.”

The Institutional Development Award program is divided into three phas-es, with each phase requiring a competitive renewal. Each phase is a five-year award. The first phase consists of developing research scientists as well as research cores in the CORE-NPN. The second phase includes sci-entists but focuses on further developing research cores. The third phase focuses on self-sustainability for the centers.

Stephen J. Cutler, chair of the medicinal chemistry department, is the prin-cipal investigator for UM’s program.

“In Phase I, we developed promising lead drug candidates for manag-ing drug addiction and conducted preliminary preclinical studies on novel drug-delivery technologies,” Cutler said. “Phase II will allow us to move these drug candidates and drug delivery systems through additional pre-clinical studies. Ultimately, the goal is to commercialize these discoveries to improve human health.”

The program provides assistance to many faculty members and research-ers, said Charles D. Hufford, the pharmacy school’s associate dean for re-search and graduate programs.

“The most important aspect of the COBRE programs is to help faculty in-crease their competitive NIH research funds, which has been accomplished in Phase I,” Hufford said. “The program is monitored by both an internal and external advisory committee composed of NIH-funded senior inves-tigators that provide critical guidance for the program. This has proved to be a beneficial aspect of the program, in addition to the financial resources provided to the researchers.”

“Phase I of the COBRE funding has significantly contributed to the de-velopment of our faculty and the advancement of science at the University

UM is committed to continually enhancing its biomedical research expertise and infrastructure.”

—Alice M. Clark, vice chancellor for research and sponsored programs“

Continued on page 19

by Erin Parsons Garrett

Stephen J. Cutler serves as principal investigator for UM’s COBRE grant.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to quickly grasp what medicinal chemistry professor Christopher R. Mc-Curdy’s research could mean to the millions of people ad-dicted to hard-core narcotics such as heroin, cocaine, crys-tal meth and morphine.

The co-director of the Center of Research Excellence in Natural Products Neuroscience has made it his mission to find and develop compounds to unlock the shackles that bind people to addictive drugs.

“A lot of people who become addicted to methamphet-amine, cocaine or even heroin truly want to quit,” McCurdy said. “They begin with recreational use and don’t think they will become addicted, but [they] soon get to the point where they almost must take the drug to survive because withdrawal is so intense.”

Making withdrawal more endurable — and, therefore, ces-sation more likely — is the goal of several projects in Mc-Curdy’s laboratory at the School of Pharmacy. Among the projects is a Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence-funded study of kratom, a botanical mixture derived from Mitragyna speciosa, a treelike plant native to Southeast Asia.

In Thailand, for example, people harvest the leaves and brew them into a tea, or chew or smoke them.

“In that part of the world, kratom has long been used for coughs, diarrhea, muscle aches and pain,” McCurdy said. “It is also used as a replacement for opium when opium isn’t avail-able and has been used to wean people off [that narcotic].”

McCurdy and his colleagues made a tea from Mitragyna leaves, freeze-dried it and tested it in mice habituated to morphine. Results indicate the tea has some undesirable side effects but that modifications eliminate them and show great promise.

New Hope for AddictsScientific quest may one day make withdrawal endurableby Barbara Lago

of Mississippi,” Provost Morris H. Stocks said. “The funding of Phase II is substantial and will advance the university’s research infrastructure, create new research opportunities for our faculty and enhance the international reputation of our institution in the area of natural products neuroscience.

“We are indebted to Dr. Cutler for his outstanding leadership and man-agement of this complex program and for his commitment to excellence in this important area of science.”

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Taking the work a step further, they isolated the plant’s most abundant alkaloid, mitragynine, and tested the pure compound. Results indicate this compound’s activity is superior to methadone in the mouse withdraw-al assay and that carefully created chemical variations may provide an alternative to methadone in treating addictions to opiates.

“Mitragynine completely blocked all withdrawal symp-toms and could provide a remarkable step-down treatment for people addicted to hard-core narcotics such as mor-phine, oxycodone or heroin,” McCurdy said.

Just as promising is another study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which indicates several small mol-ecules that McCurdy and his colleagues created, and the university patented, block the behavioral and toxic effects of cocaine and methamphetamine.

“No one has been able to block self-administration of

cocaine in rats with compounds in this class, but one of our compounds did,” McCurdy said.

Today, nothing is available to either treat cocaine and meth addiction or block the seizures and other complica-tions associated with overdoses of drugs with monikers such as crack, crystal meth and ecstasy.

“This product could potentially be the first of its kind to hit the market,” McCurdy said. “There’s still a long way to go, but our research team is motivated to complete the pre-clinical studies necessary to allow us to start doing human studies.”

absorption with minimal variability. When it goes into the mucosa, it by-passes liver metabolism, allowing for a lower dosage of the drug than when delivered orally.”

The project began nearly seven years ago and stemmed from ElSohly’s previous research on a THC supposi-tory. The concept was to develop ami-no acid prodrugs, or drug precursors, to make THC more hydrophilic, which aids in absorption.

“We began with the same com-pounds that were used in the sup-pository,” said ElSohly, president of ElSohly Laboratories Inc. as well as professor of pharmaceutics and re-search professor in UM’s National Center for Natural Products Re-search. “However, we found that the absorption took too long in the trans-mucosa, so we modified the chemistry and made another set of compounds that have better bioavailability, better stability and a longer shelf life.”

The formulas were first screened in rabbits, then in pigs at the UM Medical

Center. Two of the prodrugs stood out as candidates for further testing.

“Our findings indicate that the buc-cal film/prodrug combination pro-duces significantly higher plasma drug concentrations,” said Majumdar, asso-ciate professor of pharmaceutics and associate director of the Pii Center.

The patch is processed using hot-melt extrusion, which is used widely in the plastics industry and is coming into its own in pharmaceutical manu-facturing because it produces prod-ucts of uniform shape and density. Fast-dissolving films or tablets are of-ten produced using this technology.

The investigators credit a Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence, or COBRE, grant for kick-starting the project.

“The COBRE funding provided the initial support to identify the prom-ising new series of prodrugs and to undertake the preliminary in vitro and in vivo studies on some of the compounds,” Majumdar said. “Further work was supported by other grants received through [the National Insti-tutes of Health] in collaboration with ElSohly Laboratories.”

Continued investigation of the two prodrug candidates is expected to lead to testing in humans.

“I’m expecting even better results in humans,” Repka said. “We are look-ing into partnership opportunities. I’m confident that the combination of hot-melt extrusion technology and the oral transmucosal route is a novelty in which many will be interested.”

THC continued from page 17

Christopher R. McCurdy’s research aims to develop compounds that will alleviate withdrawal symptoms.

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A form of pterostilbene, a com-pound found naturally in blueberries, reduces blood pressure in adults, according to results of a clinical trial presented at the American Heart As-sociation’s 2012 Scientific Sessions on High Blood Pressure Research in Washington, D.C.

The randomized, double-blind, pla-cebo-controlled study was conducted by School of Pharmacy and School of Medicine researchers to determine whether pterostilbene (tero-STILL-bean), an ingredient being marketed as pTeroPure,® improves cardiovascu-lar health.

Investigators evaluated the ingredi-ent in 80 patients with high cholester-ol (total cholesterol of 200 or greater and/or LDL cholesterol of 100 or greater). Twice daily for six to eight weeks, participants received either high doses (125 mg) of pterostilbene, low doses (50 mg) of pterostilbene, pterostilbene (50 mg) with grape extract (100 mg), or a placebo, said Daniel M. Riche, the study’s principal investigator. Investigators assessed patients’ blood pressure, body weight and blood lipids at the beginning and end of their participation in the study.

“We found reduced systolic and dia-stolic blood pressure in patients who received the high dose of pterostilbene and reduced systolic blood pressure in patients who received the low dose of pterostilbene with grape extract,” said Riche, an assistant professor of phar-macy practice and medicine at the UM Medical Center in Jackson.

Participants in the high-dose pterostilbene group (250 mg per day) achieved significant reductions in

blood pressure compared to placebo: 7.8 mmHg in systolic BP (p less than 0.01) and 7.3 mmHg in diastolic BP (p less than 0.001).

The only change in lipids was an in-crease in LDL cholesterol with ptero-stilbene (24.9 mg/dL, p less than 0.001), which was less among partici-pants already on cholesterol-lowering medication and was not seen among those who also received the grape extract. Participants not on choles-terol medication also achieved a mi-nor average reduction in body weight (reduced body mass index of 0.59 kg/m2) with pterostilbene; body weight did not change significantly compared to placebo for the other participants.

Patent rights covering the use of pterostilbene for various health ben-efits were licensed from UM for com-mercial development two years ago by the ChromaDex Corp., which is

marketing it as pTeroPure, the key in-gredient in BluScience,™ a line of di-etary supplements available in some 17,000 outlets across the country. The California-based company provided support to the university for its year-long clinical study.

“We are pleased that the University of Mississippi Medical Center con-ducted our first human study, which was a key to us and our commitment to providing clinical proof for our in-gredients,” said Frank Jaksch Jr., CEO and co-founder of ChromaDex. “This is an important milestone for us in add-ing credibility to our products for fur-ther market expansion opportunities.”

ChromaDex provides dietary sup-plement, food, beverage, nutraceutical and cosmetic industries with novel in-gredients, analytical tools and services to meet product regulatory, quality, ef-ficacy and safety standards.”

Investigating pterostilbene at the University of Mississippi Medical Center are (from left) Michael E. Griswold, director of UMMC’s Center for Biosta-tistics; Justin J. Sherman, associate professor of pharmacy practice; Krista D. Riche, clinical pharmacy specialist at St. Dominic Hospital; and Daniel M. Riche, assistant professor of pharmacy practice and medicine.

Partners in TrialsClinical study reveals pterostilbene reduces blood pressure

To drive research collaboration and focus within the School of Pharmacy, as well as the broader university and its Medical Center in Jackson, the pharmacy school has de-veloped a Research Visioning Strategic Plan.

Its missions range from drug discovery to public health research.

“Our pharmacy school is highly ranked, and many of its research programs are nationally and internationally re-nowned and respected,” said David D. Allen, the school’s dean. “It’s vital that we have a plan to focus our broad re-search enterprise.”

To develop such a plan, Allen engaged the school’s facul-ty and researchers in a process he calls “research visioning” and appointed a steering committee to oversee the project.

“We have numerous strengths in our scholarship enter-prise at Ole Miss,” Allen said. “Our approach for this plan was to focus on specific strengths, so we can move forward when new resources are available.”

As part of the research visioning process, a survey was administered to all faculty and researchers in the school, as well as its key external stakeholders, to help determine

its research strengths and opportunities for collaboration within the school and the broader Ole Miss community. In February, faculty and researchers from the Oxford and Jackson campuses came together for a research summit to further develop the plan.

From the survey and summit, a research visioning dia-gram was created to outline the vision, mission, strengths and targeted impact of the school’s research. In addition, a research visioning statement was developed — a milestone for the school.

“This is the first time in the School of Pharmacy’s history that a research vision statement has been crafted,” Allen said.

The statement reads: “The University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy will be globally recognized for its multidisciplinary research in the discovery, development and translation of innovative solutions to health care problems.”

In conjunction with the plan and statement, the school has created a series of brown bag discussions focusing on key areas of research: cancer, cardiometabolic dis-orders, neuroscience/drugs of abuse and infectious dis-

eases. The discussions are taking place on both Oxford and Jackson campuses.

The brown bags began Sept. 5 and are being held at noon every Wednesday, ex-cept holidays, in Room 1018 of the Thad Cochran Research Center on the Oxford campus and Room 101 of the Pharmacy Building on the Jackson campus.

“The aim is to provide a relaxed and in-formal atmosphere for exchange of ideas centered on selected disease problems,” said Larry Walker, director of the Nation-al Center for Natural Products Research.

“As faculty [members] pause from their busy schedules to hear an introduction to what other faculty [members] are pursu-ing, or to discuss recent developments in their fields, often healthy critiques, shar-ing of equipment and techniques, new collaborations and even new research directions can evolve,” Walker said.”

Making a Statement

Research visioning encourages focus

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Research Visioning

Vision

Mission

Strengths

TargetedImpact

InnovativeHealth CareSolutions

Drug Discovery andDevelopment

Population/PublicHealth Research

Cancer CardiometabolicDisorders

Neuroscience/Drugs of Abuse

InfectiousDiseases

Clinical Research

TranslationalResearch

Discovery Development Translation Education

NaturalResources andEnvironment

NaturalProducts/DrugDevelopment

PharmaceuticalMarketing andOutcomes

Practice andCommunity

based Research

Scholarship ofTeaching

The diagram summarizes the vision, mission, strengths and impact of the pharmacy school’s research.

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School of Pharmacy professors have given community pharmacies a unique op-portunity to reinvent the way they do business.

“Community pharmacy is at a crossroads,” said Benjamin F. Banahan III, director of the pharmacy school’s Center for Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management. “We need to move community pharmacy from the traditional model of dispens-ing product to a patient-care model.”

RxSync,® a system that helps patients better manage their medication therapies, is helping local pharmacies do just that. The system synchronizes and schedules prescription refills, which elimi-nates multiple visits to the pharmacy each month and the need to call in refills before they run out. This enables pharmacists to spend more time in-teracting with patients and allows them to provide services such as medication therapy management.

Banahan and Erin R. Holmes, assistant profes-sor of pharmacy administration, developed the system by conducting four years of research and collaborating with Stanley Devine, owner of Pharmnet in Winona, who initially employed a similar business model.

“We are so excited to have a system in pharmacy where everybody wins,” Holmes said. “We’ve had testimonial after testimonial of pharmacies that have experienced dramatic, inspirational transition with RxSync.”

The system is being used in multiple pharmacies across the Southeast. Oxford Family Pharmacy began using it five months ago.

“We have customers who get eight prescriptions per month, and it’s nice to have them filled all on the same day,” said Adam Baskerville, pharmacist at Oxford Family Phar-macy. “We have about 12 patients on RxSync as of now, and we are adding to that. It’s really helpful at the beginning of the month because we already know what prescriptions need to be filled.”

Maintaining patient adherence is one of the goals of the RxSync system. To accomplish that goal, it creates a sched-ule of monthly patient monitoring, where phone calls are made in advance, requesting information for refills.

Bob Lomenick, owner of Tyson Drug Co. in Holly Springs, is a strong advocate of RxSync. He has been using the sys-tem for four years and has some 100 patients enrolled in it.

“By using this model, you are taking the chaos out of phar-macy,” Lomenick said. “You are taking your pharmacy from a reactive mode to a proactive mode. It’s a completely differ-ent way of doing pharmacy and definitely a positive change.”

For more information about RxSync, contact Banahan at 662-915-5352 or benb3@olemiss.edu, or Holmes at 662-915-5914 or erholmes@olemiss.edu.

A New Way of Doing BusinessRxSync® helps improve community pharmacy care

Adam Baskerville, pharmacist at Oxford Family Pharmacy, is an RxSync® fan.

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Because of her academic achievement, leadership qualities, in-terest in community pharmacy and extracurricular accomplishments, Sa-mantha Arrants received a Presiden-tial Scholarship from the National Community Pharmacists Association Foundation and was recognized at an awards ceremony during NCPA’s an-nual convention in San Diego.

Arrants received an award certifi-cate during the October ceremony, and the School of Pharmacy received a $2,000 check for her tuition and books. The NCPA Foundation also provided the third-year professional student with complimentary confer-ence registration and a stipend for her travel expenses.

Arrants said that she was “over-whelmed with excite-ment” when she learned she had been selected to receive the scholarship.

“I was very honored that I had been selected out of many other quali-fied applicants,” she said. “The faculty at Ole Miss has prepared me with the education and confi-dence required to excel in pharmacy.”

Arrants has a 3.4 grade-point average, was elected treasurer of UM’s student NCPA chapter and received her school’s 2012 NCPA Outstanding Student Member of the Year Award.

She has worked at Fun-derburk’s Pharmacy in Hernando, an indepen-dently owned community pharmacy, for the past eight years.

“I started working there during my senior year of high school to see if

pharmacy was the career I wanted to pursue,” she said. “I have loved my job from the very beginning and believe the encouragement and support I re-ceived from co-workers is what has driven me to accomplish my goals. I enjoy working closely with patients and getting to know them on a per-sonal level.”

While a member of the National Honor Society at Hernando High School, Arrants completed the soci-ety’s community service requirement by spending time with residents at the Wesley Meadows Retirement Community. While working at Funder-burk’s, she delivered medications to the residents and continued to build a relationship with them. Because of her classes and labs, she’s unable to work there as often as she would like but still visits the residents for whom she has grown a fondness.

“It warms a special place in my heart when I see their faces light up when I walk through the door, whether it’s to deliver their medications or just to spend time with those who don’t have loved ones nearby,” she said.

After graduating with her Doctor of Pharmacy degree in May 2014, Arrants plans to work at an indepen-dent pharmacy and hopes to own one someday.

“My experience at Funderburk’s has shown me how much pharmacists im-pact patient care and lead to better health outcomes,” she said. “It is my goal to contribute to and improve this quality of care.”

Student Scholar

Presidential Scholarship winner honored at national convention

Samantha Arrants proudly displays the certificate of achievement she received at the National Pharmacists Association’s annual convention.

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Mark T. Hamann has been awarded a $1.6 million Research Proj-ect Grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct studies on po-tential drugs for hepatitis C.

“There is a significant need for new drugs to treat hepatitis C,” Hamann said. “Based on recent data suggest-ing that endophytes are actively in-volved in the biosynthesis of estab-lished drugs, we are focusing on the bacteria and fungi that live inside the tissues of plants.”

Hamann said that endophytes have a surprising ability to produce drug or druglike molecules.

“We will explore various endophytes and develop better ways to culture or grow them,” he said. “After we grow

the bacteria and fungi, we will as-sess their ability to produce potential drugs for hepati-tis C and their re-sponse to various forms of stimuli.”

Only four drugs are used to treat the disease.

“Hepatitis C is an emerging infec-tious disease,” Hamann said. “The risk associated with the disease is devel-oping liver cancer, so there is a great need to develop effective treatments.”

When Hamann first learned that he had received the grant, he immediate-ly credited students and collaborators who helped assemble the proposal.

“My students and longtime col-leagues, Tony Whitaker (director of bi-ology at RSS Pharma, LLC in Atlanta) and Raymond Schinazi (director of the laboratory of biochemical pharmacol-ogy at Emory University), did a great deal of the heavy lifting,” Hamann said. “They were instrumental in gathering preliminary data and helping prepare various aspects of the program.”

Addressing a NeedPharmacognosy professor receives $1.6 million to study potential hepatitis C drugs

Mark Hamann works with graduate student Amanda Waters in his lab.

Joonseok Oh displays a photo of Lindera melissifolia or pondberry, on his computer. Oh is investigating the plant’s repellant properties.

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Teaching ExcellencePharmacy faculty inducted into Nelson Order

For their ongoing commitment to students and pharmacy education, two School of Pharmacy fac-ulty members were inducted into the Norman C. Nel-son Order of Teaching Excellence at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Inductees include Buddy Ogletree, clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice and coordinator of drug information and investigational drugs, and Laurie Warrington, clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice.

The 2012 inductees were honored at a luncheon with Dr. Nelson, vice chancellor emeritus for health affairs, in the UMMC student union, which bears his name. The recipients also were recognized during UMMC’s May commencement ceremony, and a plaque bearing their names hangs on the Norman C. Nelson Wall of Honor.

The Nelson Order was created to recognize out-standing teachers in all of the professional schools at UMMC.

FacULty FocUs

Norman C. Nelson Order of Teaching Excellence inductees Buddy Ogletree and Laurie Warrington.

Hamann’s students are conducting individual projects related to the over-all research goal. Vedanjali Gogineni, a visiting scholar who plans to pur-sue a Ph.D. under Hamann, has been working on the purification and char-acterization of new natural products. Graduate students Amanda Waters, Joonseok Oh and Christopher James also are contributing to the research.

Waters, who received a National Science Foundation predoctoral fel-lowship earlier this year, is developing better methods and tools for char-acterizing complex natural products generated from microbes.

James and pharmacy honors stu-dent Kelli Dulaney have been working with Xylella fastidiosa, a type of bac-teria that can kill grapes, citrus plants and hardwoods. The bacterium has

been an enormous problem for the wine industry in the U.S.

“The endophyte generates [not only] new metabolites that remain to be characterized but also well-estab-lished drugs that were once thought to be generated only by soil bacteria,” Hamann said. “Christopher and Kelli’s data strongly suggest that endophytes may be a unique group of drug-pro-ducing organisms that will yield some interesting treatments in the future.”

Oh is studying the fruits of several endangered species with the help of Ted Leininger, a plant pathologist with the U.S. Forest Service. One such spe-cies is Lindera melissifolia, a shrublike plant commonly known as pondberry.

“The pondberry has a wonderful fragrance that we extracted using a very basic method,” Oh said. “We

tested to see if the essential oil has any interesting activity and discov-ered that the plant has some tick- and insect-repellant properties. This is an example in which a plant-derived insect repellant useful in the control of Lyme disease and malaria may be produced by an endophyte.”

Recent graduates contributing to the success of Hamann’s project include Bin Wang, a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Oklahoma’s Department of Chemistry; Sam Abbas, a medical student at UM’s Medical Center in Jackson; and John Bowling, a postdoc-toral research fellow at St. Jude Chil-dren’s Research Hospital in Memphis.

“I enjoy working with graduate stu-dents,” Hamann said. “They bring a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to our research program.”

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Recognizing her dedication to community pharmacy, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores Foundation chose Ashley Ellis to be a mem-ber of its inaugural class of Faculty Scholars.

“I couldn’t be any more excited,” said Ellis, clinical assistant professor of phar-macy practice. “This is the first year that the program has been offered, and I’m so thrilled I was given this opportunity.”

Launched earlier this year, the Faculty Scholars Program is designed to edu-cate assistant professors from U.S. schools and colleges of pharmacy about designing, implementing and publish-ing community pharmacy-based patient-care research. The program provides a $2,500 starter grant to conduct and evaluate a patient-focused research project in community pharmacy practice.

“I definitely want to make a meaningful contribution on behalf of Mississippi, our institution and our patients to the research that demonstrates how community pharmacists can improve health care outcomes,” Ellis said. “We’re so ac-cessible because there’s a pharmacy on virtually every cor-ner. Patients can see a pharmacist almost around the clock.

“So that’s really my goal — to use this [grant] to continue to show evidence of accessibility and to get to know others who are doing this so success-fully at other institutions.”

Ellis has a long history in community pharmacy.“I have worked in community pharmacy since I was 16, and

I’ve always loved it,” she said. “I’ve always known this is the setting I want to be in. I completed a residency in communi-ty pharmacy, and I love sharing this passion with students.”

Much of Ellis’ work is related to community pharmacy-based patient care. For the past year, she worked with Fun-derburk’s Pharmacy in Hernando on the Delta Pharmacy Patient Care Management Project. Funded by a grant from the Delta Health Alliance, this project demonstrates how pharmacists impact clinical, economic and humanistic out-comes of residents in the Mississippi Delta.

“We will use that experience to en-hance this program,” Ellis said. “Fun-derburk’s has been providing diabetes services for almost 10 years, and the Delta Project allowed us to expand

those services. We were able to enroll many more patients who could not afford them on their own.

“Through the Delta Project, the pharmacy has built strong relationships with providers and become even more inte-grated into the community. We plan to build on that.”

Ellis is looking forward to the many opportunities the Fac-ulty Scholars Program provides.

“During my three years at the university, I’ve taught, con-ducted some research and worked on the Delta Project,” she said. “I think the program will enhance my research skills and help me step out on my own and become a pri-mary investigator.”

Expanding HorizonsAssistant professor’s passion for community pharmacy brings opportunity

Ashley Ellis

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A School of Pharmacy researcher has been honored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, known as CFSAN.

Ikhlas A. Khan, assistant director of the National Center for Natural Products Research and director of its FDA Center for Excellence in Bo-tanicals, received the CFSAN Direc-tor’s Special Citation Award for his “outstanding leadership, dedication and teamwork in support of CFSAN’s dietary supplement and cosmetics regulatory programs.”

Khan received the award at CF-SAN’s headquarters in College Park,

Md., where the center presented its 2012 Honor Awards in September.

“It is such an honor to receive this recognition because it speaks highly of the quality of our research team’s efforts in dietary supplements,” Khan said. “Words can’t express my gratitude to my NCNPR colleagues, our partners at the FDA and our other collaborators located around the world.”

Khan is a nationally and internation-ally recognized proponent of using an-alytical fingerprinting to standardize herbal products and using bioanalyti-cal approaches to improve their qual-ity and safety.

“Dr. Khan has invested much of his career in bringing the tools of modern science to bear on unraveling the ben-efits and risks of botanical supplements and ensuring their safety and efficacy,” said Larry A. Walker, NCNPR director.

“His leadership in research on bo-tanical supplements has long been appreciated in scientific, trade and regulatory communities,” Walker said. “This award from CFSAN indicates the high esteem the FDA has for Dr. Khan and his NCNPR team’s sustained contributions to its Office of Nutrition, Labeling and Dietary Supplements.”

UM researchers first partnered with the FDA to develop standards for bo-tanical dietary supplements in 2001. Since then, the FDA designated NC-NPR as a Center of Excellence for re-search in dietary supplements and, in 2009, presented the center with the FDA Commissioner’s Special Citation.

“We are fortunate to have Dr. Khan’s vision, energy and expertise helping to shape our NCNPR re-search program,” said Dean David D. Allen. “Its success in identifying, dis-covering and developing new natu-ral products, establishing important international collaborations and an-swering critical research questions has been remarkable.”

CFSAN is one of six product-orient-ed centers that carry out the mission of the FDA, which is responsible for the safety of the nation’s domesti-cally produced and imported foods, cosmetics, drugs, medical devices and other products.

Setting the Standard

FDA center honors scientist for work on dietary supplements

Barbara O. Schneeman, director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition’s Office of Nutrition, Labeling and Dietary Supplements, and Michael M. Landa (right), CFSAN director, present the Director’s Special Citation Award to Ikhlas Khan for his support of their programs.

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If Mary Claire Jarrell could use just one word to describe pharmacy administration professor David Mc-Caffrey, it would be “encouraging.”

“Throughout my tenure at Ole Miss, Dr. McCaffrey has been my support system and the one faculty member I knew I could go to with any question or concern,” said Jarrell, a first-year profession-al student. “Dr. McCaffrey loves his job and the people [by whom] he is surrounded. He makes his students feel like they are the most important thing in his day.”

For these reasons, among others, McCaffrey has been awarded an Outstanding Faculty Advising Certificate of Merit from the National Academic Advising Association.

“I became a pharmacist in order to help people,” he said. “While my career changed from pharmacy practice to aca-demia, my desire to help people did not. Academic advising is a natural extension of what I love doing — interacting with and helping people.”

McCaffrey, who received UM’s 2011 Excellence in Advis-ing Award, received his Certificate of Merit in early Octo-ber at NACADA’s annual conference in Nashville.

He has been advising students for 16 years. He began ad-vising pharmaceutical marketing and management students

in 1996 and added pre-pharmacy students in 2000.“I try to stick to two advising principles: honesty and mo-

tivation,” he said. “Because the pre-pharmacy curriculum is so challenging, students sometimes become discouraged and need to be reminded that they are talented and have what it takes to succeed.”

Lindsay Hieser, a fourth-year professional student, said that McCaffrey fulfills multiple roles within the pharmacy school.

“Once I had the opportunity to see him in his role as en-gaging instructor and as an advocate for patient care in the community, I was able to understand what made him an out-standing adviser: He cares about students, and he is pas-sionately committed to everything he does,” she said.

Michael Warren, clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice, nominated McCaffrey for the award.

“Dr. McCaffrey’s understanding of the entire university system makes him a great adviser in every sense of the word,” Warren said. “He has good working relationships across other departments on campus, and this is of great benefit when a problem occurs and a helpful solution is needed. He spends an extraordinary amount of time giving his students the soundest advice possible.”

McCaffrey, on the other hand, credits his UM and phar-macy school colleagues for his success as an adviser.

“We have a network of advisers on the UM campus who share successes and failures, which strengthens our collec-tive advising efforts,” he said. “Moreover, I have outstand-ing advising colleagues in the School of Pharmacy and have benefited greatly from the support provided by Dr. Marvin Wilson (associate dean for academic and student affairs) and his staff.”

Wise AdviceProfessor picks up national advising award

David McCaffrey proudly holds the Certificate of Merit he received from Jennifer Joslin, president of the National Academic Advising Association.

“Academic advising is a natural extension of whatI love doing — interacting with and helping people.

—David McCaffrey, professor of pharmacy administration”

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Barbara G. Wells, School of Pharmacy professor and dean emeritus, was selected 2012 Paul F. Parker Medal-ist by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. Wells was honored Oct. 21 during the opening session of ACCP’s annual meeting in Hollywood, Fla.

Named for one of clinical pharma-cy’s most influential proponents, the Parker Medal recognizes those who have helped improve or expand the pharmacy profession, said Michael S. Maddux, ACCP executive director.

“I can think of no individual more deserving of the Parker Medal than [Wells],” Maddux said.

The Parker Medal selection com-mittee said that Wells has served as “an inspiring pharmacy practitioner, educator, mentor, administrator, advo-cate and leader,” and that her “servant leadership within a host of major phar-macy organizations … is testimony to her amazing skill and commitment to shaping the pharmacy profession.”

Wells was nominated for the Parker Medal because of her commitment to developing leaders within the phar-macy profession.

“I believe this will be [her] great-est legacy,” said Stephanie J. Phelps, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s associate dean of

academic affairs and profes-sor of clinical pharmacy and pediatrics. “She has been an important role model for hundreds, perhaps thou-sands of pharmacists and student pharmacists.”

Among them is Leigh Ann Ross, UM’s associate dean for clinical affairs and chair of pharmacy practice.

“Her door was always open, and she was always ready to give good coun-sel,” Ross said. “Within the profession, national pharmacy organizations and other pharmacy schools, she is known for her leadership and mentoring of young people, residents, junior faculty and other deans.”

Wells was on the UT Health Sci-ence Center faculty, chair of phar-macy practice at Samford University and dean of pharmacy at Idaho State University before becoming dean at UM. She was elected president of the American Association of Col-leges of Pharmacy and president of ACCP. While AACP president, she developed a leadership agenda that spawned the Academic Leadership Fellows Program, which recently grad-uated its seventh class.

Stephen Cutler, UM’s chair of me-dicinal chemistry, is an ALFP graduate, as are some 200 other researchers, educators and administrators scat-tered across the country. Because of ALFP, Cutler said, “Dean Wells has left a giant genetic footprint on pharmacy education in this country. Of all the people in pharmacy education today, she is one of only a handful who carries the greatest esteem and influence.”

Wells became UM’s pharmacy dean in summer 2001. Under her leadership, the pharmacy school’s clinical program became one of the best in the country, and all its programs became more na-tionally and internationally prominent.

“Paul Parker [1919-1998] spent most of his career at my alma matter,” said UM pharmacy Dean David D. Allen. “Many of my most cherished advisers and friends were trained by him at Ken-tucky, and each of them considers Paul the consummate mentor. I think Bar-bara Wells is viewed similarly by many in our profession, and I am honored to follow in her footsteps here at UM.”

A Fitting Tribute

Former dean honored for shaping pharmacy profession

Barbara Wells

Wells became UM’s pharmacy dean in summer 2001. Under her leadership, the pharmacy school’s clinical program became one of the best in the country.

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Student members of UM’s American Pharmacists Associa-tion Academy of Student Pharmacists recently received some hands-on ex-perience while helping to raise aware-ness of immunizations.

“Working with Operation Immuniza-tion was a great learning experience,” said Kayla Hawkins, a second-year professional student and APhA-ASP vice president of clinical affairs. “I was able to interact with my patients and learn the proper technique of giving an immunization.”

Operation Immunization is an edu-cation campaign designed to increase the public’s knowledge of immuni-zations while raising the number of adults receiving immunizations. As a part of this national patient care pro-ject, chapters are encouraged to de-sign and implement an immunization education campaign, as well as recruit volunteers to provide immunizations.

APhA-ASP student members in their first (PY1) and second (PY2) pro-fessional years assisted with a three-day clinic in September in the phar-macy student lounge.

“Our PY1 and PY2 students gained experience that will prepare them to be more active participants in their upcoming rotation experiences and beyond,” said Joseph Dikun, graduate assistant in pharmacy administration and APhA-ASP co-adviser. “Through this clinic experience, our PY1 students were provided with early opportunities in patient counseling and the overall understanding of some of the impor-tant points that need to be conveyed to their future patients regarding the flu and the vaccination they received.

“Our PY2 students, who are all cer-tified through the APhA Pharmacy-based Immunization Delivery train-ing program, were able to gain more hands-on experience in immunization

administration and a deeper under-standing of the legal and regulatory issues necessary to implement such a program.”

Sandra Bentley, director of the stu-dent health center pharmacy, helped the students coordinate the clinic by providing proper documentation and a refresher course for the inoculators.

“It’s so rewarding to interact with pharmacy students out of the class-room,” Bentley said. “It was great to get the opportunity to see them devel-op their skills and grow in confidence.”

Bentley said that the students gave 84 immunizations within the pharmacy school and 22 more at the university’s Physical Plant.

“The clinic was a great success,” Hawkins said. “It was held over three days, for one hour per day. In those three hours, we were able to give almost 100 immunizations to profes-sional students, graduate students, faculty and staff.”

The APhA-ASP recognizes each chapter that implements an Opera-tion Immunization program in its com-munity and gives regional and national awards for participating. The UM chapter will submit a report to help APhA continually develop the pro-gram on a national level. The report will include an overview of the plan-ning, implementation and outcomes of the project.

“Our students have the opportu-nity to showcase the School of Phar-macy’s collaboration, student partici-pation, originality and benefit to the university and campus community,” Dikun said. “They are doing some great things.”

Operation ImmunizationPharmacy students administer more than 100 flu shots

Kayla Hawkins, a second-year professional student, gives a flu shot to Dean David D. Allen.

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The School of Pharmacy recognized four faculty members for research, instructional innovation and service during its annual fall faculty retreat.

The Cumberland Pharmaceuticals Inc. Research Award was presented to pharmacognosy professor Jordan Zjawiony, who has focused his research efforts on the semisynthesis of potential drug candidates from psycho-active plants.

His research is funded with two grants from the National Institutes of Health, and he is the author of 90 peer-re-viewed journal articles, 34 patents and 33 invited lectures. He was twice a visiting professor at his alma mater in Po-land and is helping the Technical University of Bialystok, Poland, explore the idea of building a natural products re-search center.

Pharmacy administration’s Rahul Khanna received the New Investigator Award for his pharmaceutical outcomes research.

This spring, Khanna received one of the American As-sociation of Colleges of Pharmacy’s New Investigator awards, which provide seed money to new faculty mem-bers so they can establish their first independent research projects. Khanna is using his to study the relationship between the health and well-being of caregivers of autis-tic children and the stress they experience. His research

has been cited in such publications as the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The Faculty Instructional Innovation Award went to Rob-ert Doerksen, who implemented an active learning exercise for students taking his Medicinal Chemistry of Therapeutic Agents I (MEDC 416) course. The exercise provides bonus points to students who attend the department’s research seminar series and write reports about what they learned from industry or academic leaders.

The exercise motivates students to attend the seminars and pay attention to how professionals are applying the principles of medicinal chemistry to design, development and evaluation of new chemical entities and drugs. The ex-ercise has been so successful that it has been adopted in MEDC 417 and was shared at a roundtable discussion at an AACP meeting.

Michael Warren in pharmacy practice received the Fac-ulty Service Award. Warren advises more than 100 pre-pharmacy students and spends untold hours helping them choose appropriate classes during summer, spring and fall orientation sessions. He interviews students during the school’s applicant days, helps professional students with their Pathways projects and seminar presentations, and is co-adviser of the American Society of Health-System Phar-macists student chapter.

He has served as his department’s representative on Student-Faculty Relations and External Transitions commit-tees and served on UM’s Health Works committee. He also raises money for the Tommy Tosh Scholarship and manages the Student Health Center’s Travel Medicine Clinic.

“It is faculty such as these that make our School of Phar-macy so great,” said Dean David D. Allen. “Their research, education and service efforts are why our school is so na-tionally and internationally prominent. I can’t thank them enough for their dedication, hard work and creativity.”

Featured Faculty

Four recognized during fall retreat

Michael Warren Robert Doerksen

Jordan Zjawiony Rahul Khanna

School of Pharmacy Dean David D. Allen was chosen the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy’s 2012 Outstanding Graduate Program Alumnus for the Pharmaceutical Sciences. Al-len received both his bachelor’s and Ph.D. from the college.

“The UK College of Pharmacy has meant a great deal to me throughout my entire life,” Allen said. “Being recognized by a place that has provided me [with] the tools to pursue a career in aca-demic pharmacy and research is both humbling and gratifying. This is a very special honor to me.”

The award was presented in September as part of the college’s annual Symposium on Drug Discovery and Devel-opment. Established in 2006, the award honors graduates for their accomplishments and contributions to scholarship, education and research in the pharmaceutical sciences.

“I’ve always admired David Allen’s commitment to aca-demic pharmacy and dedication to his alma mater,” said Patrick McNamara, the UK College of Pharmacy’s interim dean. “We [enjoyed] having him back on campus and learn-ing about the steps he has taken to establish himself as one of the nation’s leaders in academic pharmacy.”

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy at UK, Allen practiced community pharmacy for sev-eral years, then returned to earn his doctorate in pharmaceutical sciences.

Before coming to Ole Miss, he was associate dean of curricular affairs at Texas Tech’s School of Phar-macy, a visiting scientist in three countries and an Intramural Research Training Award Fellow at the Laboratory of Neurosciences’ Neurochemistry and Brain Transport Section of NIH’s National Institute on Aging. He also was the founding dean and professor

of pharmaceutical sciences at Northeast Ohio Medical Uni-versity’s College of Pharmacy.

Active in the American As-sociation of Colleges of Phar-macy since 1996, Allen serves

on AACP’s Council of Deans and Joint Task Force on Succeeding in an Era of Declining Federal Support. He is a Fellow of the American Pharmacists Association and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and is a member of the American Association of Pharmaceu-tical Scientists and Society of Neuroscience. A principal investigator or collaborator on more than 30 research proj-ects, he has published 114 peer-reviewed and professional journal articles, contributed to four books and served on editorial boards for four journals, including the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education.

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Born to LeadUK College of Pharmacy honors Dean Allen

David D. Allen