School of Pharmacy's Summer Research Program Aids Students in Pharmaceutical Research

This past June and July, the School of Pharmacy hosted another successful round of our summer research program. This program, which is funded in part by a Summer Undergraduate Research Foundation grant from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), provides research opportunities for undergraduate students, as well as incoming pharmacy students, in the pharmaceutical sciences. This year we welcomed ten students into the program, four students funded by the ASPET award and six students supported by funds from NIH grants on which Dr. Fawzy Elbarbry and Dr. Sigrid Roberts serve as Principal Investigators. Along with research, our summer activities included a visit to the Oregon National Primate Research Center, a Career Panel where students learned about different pathways and opportunities within pharmacy and the pharmaceutical sciences, and our annual Elevator Pitch competition where students had the opportunity to pitch the significance of their research to an audience of faculty, staff, and fellow students. This year's summer research program culminated with a series of impressive presentations by the students in which they discussed their key research findings during the summer, which included the effect of melatonin on mitochondrial metabolism and oxidative stress, the identification of new therapeutic targets for venomous peptides from cone snails, the interplay between carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, cytochrome P450 and cancer,  and the role of polyamines in mitochondrial metabolism, protein synthesis, and cell survival in the pathogenic parasite Leishmania donovani. A big thank you to all of the students and research mentors that made this summer research program such a success and special thanks to Drs. Michael Espiritu and Sigrid Roberts for helping to direct the summer research program, as well as to our pharmacy lab staff, Jon Taylor and Elham Yaaghubi, for all of their logistical support.

- by Nicola Carter, PhD | Chair for Pharmaceutical Sciences and Assistant Professor | School of Pharmacy