The Pharmacist - Spring 2022 by UIC Retzky College of Pharmacy

SPRING 2022 | VOLUME 45 | ISSUE 1

THE MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CHICAGO COLLEGE OF PHARMACY

S o u r c e s o f In s p i r a t i o n a n d M o t i v a t i on

A Model for Communit y Engagement The Cla ss of 2020

Invest ing in the F ut ure

contents 02

Dean’s Letter

Events

College News

Student News

Catching Up with the Class of 2011

Sources of Inspiration and Motivation

Class of 2020

You’ve Got Mail

Investing in the Future

Alumni Profiles

Ask an Alumnus

Alumni News

4 In September of 1868, our college published the first issue of a trade journal simply named The Pharmacist. The magazine you see before you is named in honor of that historic journal.

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EDITORIAL CREDITS PUBLISHER Glen T. Schumock, PharmD, MBA, PhD Professor and Dean

EDITORS Robert Hoff UIC Creative and Digital Services Ben Stickan Former Associate Dean of Advancement PROOFREADERS Lexi Betcher Deb Fox Chris Gummert CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jessica Canlas Jacqueline Carey Sonya Collins Michael Dhar Andrew Faught Sharon Parmet Daniel Smith PHOTOGR APHY Barry Donald DESIGN Godfrey Carmona UIC Creative and Digital Services The Pharmacist 833 S. Wood St. (MC 874) Chicago, Illinois 60612 (312) 996-7240 pharmcommunications@uic.edu ©2022. All rights reserved.

PRINTED WITH SOY INKS AND PAPER CONTAING 10% POST CONSUMER MATERIAL

FROM THE DEAN

Vision, Passion, Impact BY DEAN GLEN SCHUMOCK It seemed like “Groundhog Day” as students, faculty, and staff of the UIC College of Pharmacy started the 2022 spring semester at the peak of the Omicron surge, temporarily requiring reinstated safety measures. Thankfully, that is behind us, and with the winter ending, we are again energized by our collective vision, our passion to serve, and an understanding of the impact we can have. In this issue of The Pharmacist, you will find strong evidence of the college’s impact in education, research, and service—and the passion and sense of purpose that drives that. Besides the regular articles, included herein is our 2021 Impact Statement. The infographics, numbers, and detailed stories all point to the same thing —a community of students, faculty and preceptors, staff, alumni, and other strategic partners working together to be the global leader in innovative pharmacy education, research, and practice to improve human health. The lead article in this issue, titled “Sources of Inspiration and Motivation,” focuses on more than a dozen of our productive research faculty and the passion and purpose that drives their discovery and success. Whether that passion comes from the desire to cure a disease experienced by a family member, innate curiosity, or an internal need to make the world better, it is evident in the personal stories of Drs. Jeremey Johnson, Lisa Sharp, Greg Calip, Steve Lee, Eric Wenzler, Tom Gao, Zach Bulman, Shura Mankin, Nora Vasquez-Laslop, Mike Federle, Maria Barbolina, Karen Sweiss, and Joanna Burdette and all our researchers.

Online pharmacy.uic.edu go.uic.edu/PharmFBChicago go.uic.edu/PharmFBRockford go.uic.edu/PharmTwitter go.uic.edu/PharmLinkedIn go.uic.edu/PharmInstagram go.uic.edu/PharmYouTube

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However, that passion and purpose are not isolated to research. It runs through our entire pharmacy family. It is what drives our clinical faculty in their care of patients and in their service to others—like Dr. Jewel Young who is an excellent example of how our faculty and students engage with and serve the community. That passion is also what drives our faculty in the classroom and preceptors in experiential education. Teachers like Dr. Kathy Sarna, the recipient of 2021 Frederick P. Siegel Innovative Teaching Award, or Drs. Marianne Pop and Oksana Kucher as they train future emergency pharmacy specialists. All of their stories are included in this issue. That passion is instilled in our students and trainees, and they carry it with them in their careers. This is exemplified by Soojin Jun, PharmD ’13. You will read how her father’s death has led her on a crusade to allow pharmacists to be better able to solve the many problems with our healthcare system. Similar passion has propelled Drs. Kersten Weber Tatarelis, PharmD ’07, Deanna Horner, PharmD, RES ’08, Denise Scarpelli, PharmD ’96, Mashal Alshazi, PhD ’15, and other alumni highlighted in this issue That same passion motivates our alumni and friends to support this college and our students. That support— whether in volunteered time or financial contributions— is incredible. In the past few months, we have received gifts for endowed scholarships, which you will read

Got News? Change jobs? Get a promotion? Publish a paper? Publish a book? Get married? Have a baby? We want to hear about it all! Send your news directly to the associate director of development Lexi Betcher at lbetcher@uic.edu. We’ll do our best to fit it into our publications and/or social media! If you don’t see it in The Pharmacist, please go to go.uic.edu/PharmNews.

EVENTS

Continuing Education Opportunities about, including the Jim and Phyllis White Scholarship, The Bartels and Bauman Family Scholarship, the Dr. Alice Romie Memorial Scholarship, the Bartels Family Pharmaceutics Lab Scholarship, and the MadduxVeremis Scholarship. The UIC Pharmacy Emmett and Ruth Mobley Memorial Leadership Fund, established by Miriam Mobley Smith, PharmD ’95, is also described in this issue. These gifts and the others noted in our 2021 Impact Report make this college’s work possible. These gifts change lives. We are thankful for your contribution, support, and engagement.

FIVE-POINT VISION

Provide unparalleled pharmacy education and training

Advance the profession through leadership and advocacy

The University of Illinois Chicago College of Pharmacy Office of Continuing Education and Meeting Services (OCEMS) has released the following programs: P HARM ACY T ECHN IC IAN C E P ROG RAM S

Lead the nation in pharmaceutical research that impacts health

Foster a culture of excellence, collaboration, and inclusiveness

Twenty-two ACPE-approved pharmacy technician continuing education programs are available. For more information, please visit go.uic.edu/PharmTechCE. P H A R M AC I ST C E P R O G R A M S Twenty-nine ACPE-approved pharmacist continuing education

Be the epicenter of innovative pharmacy services

programs are available. For more information, please visit go.uic.edu/PharmacistCE.

Our Digital Edition issuu.com/uicpharmacy

SPRING 2022

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COLLEGE NEWS

University Sets Research Funding Record The University of Illinois Chicago received $446 MILLION in sponsored funding during the 2021 fiscal year, including $24.4M from UIC Pharmacy research faculty, setting a record for research awards. The total amount represents an 8.6% increase over fiscal year 2020, with funding supporting over 3,500 research projects that move research to practical application. UIC’s research impact spans the globe through initiatives such as developing treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, reshaping education equity and access, and creating more sustainable environments worldwide. “Another record year for our research portfolio highlights our culture of innovation and our commitment to the creation and application of new knowledge. Our researchers’ relentless devotion to discoveries that improve lives solidifies UIC’s reputation as one of the world’s top research universities,” said UIC chancellor Michael Amiridis. Glen Schumock, dean of the College of Pharmacy, said, “I am proud of the role that the College of Pharmacy plays in contributing to the overall research mission of UIC. Beyond just funding, our faculty have had a huge impact through the discovery of new drugs and knowledge that changes lives.”

2021 OTM Inventor of the year UIC’s Office of Technology Management recently selected Dr. DON WALLER, professor emeritus, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, as the 2021 Inventor of the Year. See the enclosed Impact Report for the full story.

Drs. Mankin and Polikanov Published in Nature A new study by Drs. ALEXANDER MANKIN and YURY POLIKANOV published in the journal Nature reports on a new antibiotic that binds to the ribosome of bacterial cells and stops drug-resistant pathogens from making mice sick. In January, the UIC Pharmacy researchers developed a unique approach for visualizing ribosomes that are resistant to conventional antibiotics.

Dr. Guido Pauli

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Now, Dr. Polikanov’s new study shows the potential of the drug iboxamycin, which could one day help humans who are ill due to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and identifies how the drug overcomes the most widespread mechanism of resistance to this class of antibacterials.

Pharmacists Receive Commendation from the University of Illinois System President Drs. RODRIGO BURGOS, ROB DIDOMENICO, ANDY DONNELLY, SARAH MICHIENZI, and RENATA SMITH were recognized by Timothy Killeen, president of the University of Illinois System, for their contributions to the fight against COVID-19. Killeen’s letter noted their role “in our fight against COVID-19 has helped save lives on our university campuses and well beyond and has fueled the larger effort across Illinois and the nation to foster social and economic recovery as we navigate the pandemic.” Congratulations to all our awardees and thank you for your contributions to this monumental undertaking.

Does Cannibis Prevent COVID? Dr. GUIDO PAULI and Pharmacognosy Institute coworkers Drs. SHAO-NONG CHEN and BRENT FRIESEN, as well as Dr. TAKASHI OHTSUKI, published a paper in Science Advances. “Cannabidiol Inhibits SARS-CoV-2 Replication through Induction of the Host ER Stress and Innate Immune Responses” finds that CBD inhibits infection of COVID-19 cells in mice.

Additional Faculty and Staff News and Achievements Dr. MELISSA BADOWSKI, clinical associate professor, was recently appointed to the Standards and Practice Guidelines Committee of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Dr. ROB DIDOMENICO, associate professor and assistant head for research, and distinguished professor emeritus Dr. JERRY BAUMAN were recently honored by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy’s Cardiology Practice and Research Network (PRN). Dr. DiDomenico was recognized with the PRN Mentoring Award and Dr. Bauman was recognized with the PRN’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Congratulations to executive associate dean and professor Dr. STEPHANIE CRAWFORD who was selected as a fellow for the 2021–2022 President’s Executive Leadership Program. This is a very selective group of faculty and administrators from throughout the University of Illinois System. Dr. Crawford was also recognized as APhA-APRS fellow earlier this year at the APhA 2021 Virtual Awards Ceremony. Dr. RICK GEMEINHART, professor and associate vice chancellor for research, was recently appointed to the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists Introductions in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Book Series Editorial Board. Dr. ANNETTE HAYS, clinical assistant professor, recently received a grant, in partnership with the College of Medicine, from the Community Foundation of Northern Illinois as part

of their Community Grants Program. The grant will support our Rockford campus and their DiabetesTEAM: Text-Messaging Education & Support Pilot project at a federally qualified health center.

Dr. James Lee

Dr. Edith Nutescu

Drs. JAMES LEE, clinical associate professor, and EDITH NUTESCU, professor and head, Department of Pharmacy Practice, received funding from the Association of University Centers on Disabilities, CDC, and the National Blood Clot Alliance for their project titled “Prevalence of Venous and Arterial Thromboembolic Events in Adult and Pediatric Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19.” Dr. MARC MCDOWELL, clinical assistant professor, was honored with the Emergency Medicine Practice and Research Network (PRN) New Clinical Practitioner Award by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. Dr. JEFFREY MUCKSAVAGE, clinical assistant professor, received the Presidential Citation from the Neurocritical Care Society. Dr. KIRSTEN OHLER, clinical associate professor, received the Pediatric PRN Achievement Award from the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. Dr. MARIANNE POP, clinical assistant professor, recently received both the New Practitioner and Shining Star Awards from the Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists. In addition, Dr. Pop was appointed ICHP director-elect of educational affairs for 2021– 2022. DALE RUSH, associate dean, received the 2021 Exceptional Service Award from the Administrative and Financial Officers Special Interest Group (SIG) of the AACP.

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COLLEGE NEWS

Dr. CHRIS SCHRIEVER, clinical associate professor, was recently appointed chair of the Illinois Medicaid Drug Utilization Review Committee. Professor LISA SHARP received the UIC Pharmacy 2021 Inaugural Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Impact Award. The award was developed by the college to honor those who have distinguished themselves in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion. Dr. Todd Lee, head of the Department

Dr. Freitag’s research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms by which pathogenic bacteria cause disease and the host immune responses that limit infection. The NIH has continuously funded her laboratory since 1997, and she is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. Dr. Freitag’s

of Pharmacy, Systems, Outcomes, and Policy (PSOP), noted Dr. Sharp’s active involvement in DEI activities and “longstanding research focus on health disparities.” Clinical associate professor emerita JOANN STUBBINGS received the Section & Forums Distinguished Service Award at the ASHP 2021 Midyear Meeting. Assistant dean Dr. ROSALYN VELLURATTIL was appointed to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy’s Council of Deans Resolutions Committee 2021–2022 for a second year in a row. Dr. ERIC WENZLER, assistant professor, has been appointed editor of the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy-Antimicrobial Resistance.

Q&A with Dr. Nancy Freitag, our Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences New Department Head Dr. Freitag shares some thoughts about her plans for the future, how the department is positioned for further success, and where she sees it heading in the coming years.

teaching has been recognized by several awards, including three Golden Apples. She has published over eighty peerreviewed publications and holds two patents. In 2017, she received the University Scholar award. She obtained her PhD in biological chemistry from UCLA and served on the faculty at Wayne State University and the University of Washington before joining UIC in 2006.

What excites you most about moving into your new position as head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (PSCI)?

I’m excited and grateful to be the new department head of PSCI. This is a wonderful chance to support a unique, dynamic, and growing department that has a great culture of respect and collaboration. I have learned an extensive amount about this university and its goals and processes while working in the faculty affairs office, and I hope to bring this expertise to PSCI to support faculty, students, and staff while also contributing to the exciting science that is currently underway. There is so much potential here. The mix of basic science with drug discovery, design, and delivery perfectly positions the department to take advantage of many new initiatives and program projects that are in the making, both locally and nationally.

PSCI is exceptionally well poised within the College of Pharmacy to compete for NIH and DoD programs and projects that focus on the identification of new drug targets and new delivery systems. Its unique position within the city of Chicago creates opportunity in ongoing efforts to develop and grow the city into a biotech hub. The department is in an exciting place at a very opportune time.

What do you see as PSCI’s most substantial assets?

I think I speak to some of this above. The department’s supportive, collaborative culture is a huge asset. The strong mix of basic science with drug discovery, design, and delivery brings critical expertise together in exciting and productive ways. The strong support and reputation of the College of Pharmacy is a tremendous asset. And all of the talented people within the department who contribute

Dr. Nancy Freitag

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to the science, teaching, service, and community engagement—they are the heart and core of PSCI.

What are your priorities as department head?

One of my first priorities will be a listening tour—I want to meet with all department members (faculty, staff, and students) and hear about their ideas, needs, and concerns. I’d like to start plans for a recurring department retreat that brings people together for science and for fun. Once a new UICentre for Drug Discovery director is in place, I’d like to start work on a shared strategic plan to help the department plan its way forward and guide recruitment efforts. Keeping PSCI a place where people love to come to work is a great goal.

How would you like to see the department grow in the next decade?

It would be great to see PSCI use its unique talents to become part of the driving force to put Chicago on the map as a biotech hub. Collaborations and involvement with the Chicago Biomedical Consortium and the Discovery Partners Institute would be one way to make this happen. There are also a number of programs and initiatives coming out of NIH, NSF, and other funding agencies for which PSCI could be very competitive. Building on strengths relevant to the UI Cancer Center and anti-infective drug discovery is of key importance. And PSCI’s continuing focus on building and supporting diversity and inclusive classrooms is another exciting area of growth.

Please tell us a little about your research program and efforts.

My research program is focused on understanding how bacterial pathogens invade our bodies and

cause disease and on the characterization of host responses that limit bacterial infection. My lab has primarily focused on a food-borne pathogen known as Listeria monocytogenes, but we’ve also had projects focused on other medically important pathogens, including Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, and recently Klebsiella pneumoniae. I’ve been continuously funded by the NIH and other organizations for more than 25 years, and I’ve recently received fundable scores on NIH grants focused on infection during pregnancy and on how anesthetics, such a propofol, influence host immunity to lung infections. I’ve collaborated and hope to continue to collaborate with investigators in the department, as well as other investigators at UIC and in the Chicago community, and nationally and internationally. My research fits in nicely with efforts in drug target discovery as well as the effect of drugs (anesthetics) on immune function. I’m very excited about the possibility of additional collaborations. I’m also looking forward to discovering how I can best contribute to teaching and mentoring within the department.

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not at work fulfilling academic duties?

I enjoy exploring Chicago and also the nature preserves and parks outside of the city. Since I’m rarely at the bench anymore, I like experimenting with cooking at home (with mixed success!). I love getting together with friends and family, and I look forward to traveling again once that becomes more feasible.

A little-known fact about Dr. Nancy Freitag?

I used to play the baritone sax—the band director in grade school started me on it because I was the tallest kid in the class. And while I wish I were related to Amanda Freitag, the New York chef and Food Network judge, unfortunately, I’m not. But I can always pretend…

After nearly four years at the college, BEN STICKAN, associate dean and director of advancement, concluded his service on February 24, 2022, to be nearer to his family in New York. The Advancement & Alumni Affairs team, under his leadership, has seen noteworthy success partnering with our alumni and friends in support of our mission. These partnerships resulted in the creation of over 30 endowed scholarships, support for a professorship, two significant contributions earmarked for our Drug Discovery and Cancer Research Pavilion, as well as significant programmatic and research support. And, fruitful and worthwhile engagement and involvement with alumni far and wide. Ben will be missed. In the interim, to get involved or support our mission, don’t hesitate to contact Lexi Betcher, associate director of development, UIC Pharmacy, at lbetcher@uic.edu or Steve George, assistant vice chancellor for advancement, Health Sciences Colleges, at steveg@uic.edu. Ben Stickan

SPRING 2022

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STUDENT NEWS

UIC Pharmacy Students Provide Services to Uninsured Patients In 2021, UIC Pharmacy students continued to provide services to uninsured patients at CommunityHealth, the largest volunteer-based free clinic. This practice site for UIC clinical pharmacists Drs. Nazia S. Babul and Jewel Younge is an opportunity for many students, several of whom created videos for patients. VALLARI SHAH, president of the college’s Association of Indian Pharmacists of America (AIPhA) student chapter, took the lead in these efforts. Fellow students who created videos, the videos they oversaw, and the organizations they are a part of are noted to the right.

Diabetic Foot Health Vallari Shah (P3, SNPhA/AIPhA) Hyperglycemia and Hypoglycemi Josh Posner (P3, SNPhA) Lifestyle Modification: Diet Sally Ndir (P3, SNPhA) Lifestyle Modifications: Exercise Ashley Choi (P2, SNPhA) Lifestyle Modifications: Exercise Demos Monaz Engineer and Alisha Desai (P4s, AIPhA) Emen Salam (P3, AIPhA) Spanish Translation Marisol Wences (P3, HLPSA) A number of the patient engagement videos may be found at go.uic.edu/HealthEdVideos.

Additionally, MARISOL WENCES and MONICA CARRANZA CRUZ were recognized by CommunityHealth for their efforts in patient outreach in getting patients vaccinated for COVID-19 at CommunityHealth.

IPhA & MPA Pharmacy Conference Winners UIC Pharmacy students competed in the Business Plan Competition at a joint Illinois Pharmacists Association (IPhA) and Missouri Pharmacy Association (MPA) meeting. The IPhA & MPA Pharmacy Conference 2021 was held October 21–24 in St. Louis. UIC sent two student groups, and we are proud to note that they represented the school well. The winning group was PharmFit, which included student pharmacists CHERRI PHAN, ELNA SHIBU, MEGAN MURTAGH, and GUNJAN PATEL. The team that came in second included MARY TRAN, WILLIAM YE, EMEN SALAM, and CHRISTIAN SAN ANDRES—all from UIC Pharmacy.

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Dr. Eva Vivian Does More than Talk the Talk BY JESSICA CANLAS

diet change. I began to learn that there are so many factors influencing a person’s health,” she explains. “I decided to switch to community-based research, where I could work with people within the community and learn about [these] factors.” Shortly after that, in 2006, she accepted her current position at the University of Wisconsin, where she went on to earn her MPH and a PhD in civil society and community research.

Dr. Eva Vivian

EVA VIVIAN, PharmD ’95, believes her role as a pharmacist is to be a “trusted messenger” in the community she serves. Pharmacists are in a position to help patients glean truth from the information overload that the internet, family, and friends offer, she says. “Pharmacists should learn more about the communities where their patients reside so they have a better understanding of the challenges and barriers their patients face when attempting to live a healthy lifestyle.” When it comes to understanding her patients, Vivian, who specializes in community-based diabetes research, has been known to do more than talk the talk. As a professor of pharmacy practice at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and certified diabetes care and education specialist, she occasionally spends time wearing an insulin pump (filled with saline), using a glucose monitor, and restricting her grocery shopping to the city’s food deserts, areas with limited access to fresh, whole foods. Vivian’s interest in community-based disease-prevention research developed during her first faculty position at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. She established a pharmacist-managed hypertension clinic that eventually evolved into a cardiovascular risk-reduction clinic treating hyperlipidemia and diabetes. “On occasion, I’d work with a patient whose blood pressure remained elevated in spite of medication and

In Madison, Vivian’s work focuses on identifying disparities in the treatment of hypertension, diabetes, and other chronic diseases among ethnic minorities, particularly African American and Latin American patients, and developing and implementing strategies to reduce and eliminate them. Her research has recently turned its attention to children and adolescents at particular risk of diabetes in a project called Healthy Outcomes through Peer Education (HOPE), which educates African-American grandmothers, who often become caregivers for their grandchildren. Funded by a grant from the American Diabetes Association, HOPE provides one year of education, training, and peer support for grandmothers enrolled in a diabetes prevention program. HOPE will educate and equip participants with the necessary support to work toward better health for themselves and their grandchildren. “We need to get in front of this train driving towards the development of diabetes and slow down the progression of the disease.” A fellow of the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists, she maintains a practice at Access Community Health Centers in Madison. She has been honored multiple times for her work in the city’s marginalized communities, including the American Pharmacists Association’s Wiederholt Prize and the Healthy Aging STAR Award for Health Equity from the Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging. Vivian, who admits she hadn’t envisioned her career path as it has unfolded, advises students to chase their dreams and be open-minded. “Become a lifelong learner. We are all in a process of ongoing development. Life is full of experiences that will encourage us to expand our goals and strengthen our skills.”

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Catching Up with the Class of 2011

Dr. Dharmesh Bavda Finds His Passion in Communicating Oncology

Pharmacy Gives Dr. Lamar Quinn the Power to Make a Difference

Search for Pancreatic Cancer Answers Takes Dr. Sumit Sahni to Sydney

Dr. Kathleen Tsai Brings Clinical Skills to Insurance Side

For Dharmesh Bavda, PharmD ’11, getting to his ideal role meant staying open to opportunities. After growing in a variety of clinical jobs, Bavda now collaborates with healthcare providers on cancer research as a medical science liaison at Deciphera Pharmaceuticals.

Growing up on the south side of Chicago, Lamar Quinn, PharmD ’11 dreamed of making a difference in people’s lives. Today, he does just that, counseling patients as a Walgreens pharmacy manager in Dallas, Texas, and running a charity he cofounded.

Sumit Sahni’s, PhD ’11, dedication to medical research first took him from Delhi, India, to Chicago, then across the world again to Australia. Today, he searches for much-needed biomarkers and treatments for one of the world’s deadliest cancers.

After a stint in retail pharmacy, Kathleen Tsai, PharmD ’11, found a new area where the clinical skills she gained at UIC have come in handy—prior authorizations.

His job these days involves addressing a lot of COVID-19 vaccine concerns, Dr. Quinn said. Truly listening has worked best. “What has worked in our favor is just being a listener first, empathizing with them, understanding their concerns.”

After an October 2021 promotion, Dr. Sahni now serves as senior research fellow at the University of Sydney, investigating pancreatic cancer. “One of the worstperforming cancers around the world,” with survival rates past five years of just 6% in the United States, pancreatic cancer comes with dire research needs, Sahni said. Most patients get diagnosed too late for surgery, the only curative treatment, so identifying biomarkers is crucial.

Working in that role since January 2021, Dr. Bavda serves as a scientific expert on oncology treatments, such as the company’s oral chemotherapy agent for advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). Bavda’s liaison work follows a series of clinical positions, including in internal medicine at Amita Saint Joseph Hospital. There, by continually volunteering for new opportunities, Bavda found his true calling, he said. “When the opportunity opened up to move down to the cancer clinic . . . I really found my specialty,” he said. “I’m so excited that I did because oncology has become my passion.” Discovering that he loved communicating with the oncology team, Bavda realized that medical science liaison should be his next step. Bavda credits UIC with providing the clinical foundation he needed for his current role—and with giving him the opportunity to mentor experiential students and residents.

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That kind of direct community contact made pharmacy a dream job, Quinn said. “Retail pharmacists are the first touch point in most patients’ lives when it comes to medical care. As a pharmacist, it was a chance to make the most change.” To help his community even more, Quinn cofounded Toast for Charity, a group dedicated to “galvanizing millennials to give their time, talents and funds to community issues.” He achieved his dream of improving lives, Quinn said. “UIC is in the heart of Chicago . . . one of the best pharmacy programs in the world that’s making a difference in the profession— that blew my mind to have that opportunity.”

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Even surgery, however, has a low success rate, so Sahni’s lab additionally searches for targeted treatments for pancreatic cancer, of which there are currently none. “A lot of research needs to be done in that area,” he said. First motivated to pursue medical research after experiences with illness in his family, Sahni studied the role of nitric oxide in metastasis in Dr. Douglas Thomas’s lab at UIC. That hypothesis originated in Sydney, so after graduation, Sahni followed the science to Australia. “All the work I’ve done, whatever I’ve learned, started from UIC,” he said.

As a clinical prior authorization pharmacist at Optum in California, Dr. Tsai lends pharmacy expertise to medication-coverage decisions. The field attracted her because she could bring a clinical pharmacy perspective to insurance, she said. “It’s more provider-facing and on the insurance side, so it’s not retail focused,” she said. “Also, the work was interesting. I can use my clinical skills. I like helping medicines get covered for patients.” Tsai’s work at Optum has shown clear results. She created a program reaching out to providers and patients to review coverage decisions, boosting star ratings from independent qualityassurance agencies and raising Medicare appeals case compliance to 100% for three months. In addition to her clinical background, Tsai brings a pharmacy outcomes perspective to Optum. She completed a fellowship and has published in the field, earning a master’s degree in the discipline in 2013. Crediting UIC with opening up doors for her fellowship and beyond, Tsai said the school’s network has been beneficial. Fellow alumni keep popping up, too, as Tsai’s current boss is Parixit Modi, PharmD ’07, MBA.

Mobley Memorial Leadership Fund BY JESSICA CANLAS

MIRIAM MOBLEY SMITH, PharmD ’95, says she’s been fortunate to be able to follow her passions.

To contribute to UIC Pharmacy’s Emmett and Ruth Mobley Memorial

Last fall, her journey led her to establish the UIC Pharmacy Emmett and Ruth Mobley Memorial Leadership Fund in honor of her late parents. This endowment will advance a key part of the college’s mission—to create a culture of excellence, collaboration, and inclusiveness—by cultivating transformational change supporting diversity and equity. The fund will support curricular, student and faculty recruitment, retention, and outreach efforts, as well as seminars and workshops that promote meaningful dialogue among faculty, staff, and students. Dr. Mobley Smith, who took on the post of interim dean and visiting professor at the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy at the University of Hawaii at Hilo in February, attributes the success she’s had in her career—and in life—to the initial guidance she received from her parents. She recalls her hometown of Ecorse, Michigan, as a challenging environment for youth, many of whom barely finished high school. “My parents had such a vested interest in our success,” she says. “They knew education would be the key, and it was.” That inspiration and motivation paid off. Mobley Smith and her siblings became their family’s first generation of college graduates, each of them becoming leaders in their chosen fields. Mobley Smith discovered her calling to pharmacy as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, where she went on to complete her BS in pharmacy. After earning

Leadership Fund, please visit giving.pharmacy.uic.edu or contact Lexi Betcher, associate director of development, at lbetcher@uic.edu.

Emmett and Ruth Mobley

her PharmD at UIC, she went on to hold three deanships at colleges of pharmacy, and her professional leadership roles include serving as chair of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Advisory Panel on Outreach and Education and as vice chair of the Illinois State Board of Pharmacy. On a list of many, her recognition for service to the profession includes the Illinois Pharmacists Association’s Pharmacist of the Year Award and the University of Michigan Alumni Service Award in Pharmacy. Although education played a major role in Mobley Smith’s career, she admits that it wasn’t enough to prevent significant challenges along that journey, “facing issues related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and racism. I want this gift to play a role in helping to dismantle the foundational construct behind those discriminatory behaviors to help prevent others like me from having to experience those unnecessary and harmful barriers during their trajectory.” She believes UIC’s urban location make it the right place to honor her parents’ legacy. “This is a broad [effort] to help change an environment and support endeavors that will . . . recruit more diverse faculty and bring in speakers and host symposia to peel back layers and look deeper into why. We’re all scholars. Let’s be scholarly and do something about it. “UIC needs it.” Through this initiative, Mobley Smith hopes to offer the kind of guidance and support she received from her parents. “My parents were my ultimate mentors,” she says. “I miss them dearly, but this is a good way to honor them in a way that benefits others.”

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Blending purpose and passion with scientific acumen, UIC Pharmacy researchers thrive in drug discovery and adjacent areas. B Y

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orsten Wiesel didn’t win the Nobel Prize by accident.

A self-described “lazy, mischievous student” in his early years, Wiesel grew fascinated by the workings of the nervous system as a university student in the 1940s. That enthrallment, coupled with an inherent interest in psychiatry cultivated at the dinner table—Wiesel’s father directed a mental institution near the family’s Stockholm home—fueled his prolific career as a neurophysiologist, including a longstanding collaboration with David Hubel on sensory processing that netted the pair their Nobel honor in 1981. Absent that deep and pressing wonder about the nervous system and the mind, Wiesel once said, such groundbreaking work would have been tough to achieve no matter his IQ score. “Science is not an intelligence test,” Wiesel charged. “Intuition is important, knowing what kind of questions to ask. The other thing is a passion for getting to the core of the problem.” As Wiesel’s words suggest, enterprising, purpose-filled work fuels some of the scientific world’s most enterprising initiatives, and this reality rings especially true at the UIC College of Pharmacy.

Dr. Jeremy Johnson

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On UIC Pharmacy’s Chicago and Rockford campuses, researchers pairing deep scientific knowledge with an earnest mix of purpose and passion continue leading ambitious drug discovery research efforts in fields such as cancer, infectious diseases, and women’s health—three particular areas, it’s worth noting, that will be bolstered with the forthcoming debut of the Drug Discovery and Cancer Research Pavilion at UIC. Whether motivated by their personal connections to a disease, deeply held philosophical underpinnings, or an intense, unrelenting curiosity, College of Pharmacy researchers’ ability to blend undeniable acumen with a sincere desire to advance drug discovery and adjacent areas, such as drug delivery, diagnostics, and even adherence, continues sparking profound results with the power to enhance patient care and improve healthcare. “This elevates their work and takes it to a different level,” UIC College of Pharmacy dean Glen Schumock says of UIC researchers’ mission-driven work. “We have rich examples across the college of our researchers’ inquiry impacting patient health in positive ways, and that’s work we want to continue doing for the benefit of our local communities and our world.”

A SPIRITED QUEST TO DISCOVER THE CANCER-FIGHTING POWER OF NATURAL PRODUCTS

For much of the last 15 years, Dr. Jeremy Johnson, has been exploring the mangosteen fruit’s potential to address prostate cancer, a disease recording 1.3 million new cases each year, according to the World Cancer Research Fund. In preclinical studies, Johnson’s lab has isolated nine different compounds from the mangosteen, a popular fruit from Southeast Asia that Johnson first discovered as a young research fellow thumbing through a catalog of novel compounds. Each of the nine mangosteen compounds holds its own unique targets. Johnson hopes his research inspires novel approaches to target the androgen receptor known to play a pivotal role in prostate cancer’s development and progression. “I’m encouraged by the opportunity to move this research to clinical trials and impact lives,” says Johnson, whose work on the mangosteen earned him a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health in 2019. For Johnson, who proclaimed his intentions to become a scientist as a six-year-old, the promise of researching natural products and drug targets continues to excite. “Discovery is so appealing to me, even more when you consider its potential effect on real lives,” says Johnson, who is also investigating rosemary’s therapeutic potential in breast and prostate cancer cases. A FOUNDATIONAL MOMENT, BIG DATA, AND BATTLING CANCER

As a 10-year-old boy, Greg Calip, PharmD ’08, PhD, MPH, watched his young cousins confront the death of their father from colorectal cancer. It was a foundational moment for Calip. “I knew even then that if I was somehow capable of helping cancer patients, I would,” Calip says. Though Calip assumed his cancer-fighting efforts would occur in clinical settings, the UIC-trained PharmD discovered an aptitude for big data while pursuing his PhD in epidemiology at the University of Washington. Today, big data is the weapon Calip wields against cancer.

Last March in JAMA Oncology, Calip and his team reported findings that the 21-gene recurrence score, a tool frequently used to identify breast cancer candidates for adjuvant chemotherapy, was less predictive for racial and ethnic minority patients. As a result, black women in the United States were more likely to die of axillary node-negative breast cancer than their white peers carrying comparable recurrence scores. Those findings crystallize the need for model calibration and more inclusive research designed to narrow existing health disparities and improve outcomes for all cancer patients. “Real-world patient data has a role in pushing drug discovery forward and improving treatment options for cancer patients,” says Calip, an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacy Systems, Outcomes, and Policy. BRINGING PATIENT CONTEXT TO DRUG DISCOVERY

A clinical psychologist who specializes in health, Dr. Lisa Sharp is committed to making sure existing as well as new therapeutics consider patient-side context. “You can come up with all the wonderful drugs in the world, but if patients are not able to follow through and take the medications as necessary, then it’s futile,” says Sharp, whose perspective has been shaped by a childhood in Oklahoma in which she saw many around her struggle to manage their health. Since arriving at UIC in 2012, Sharp, an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacy Systems, Outcomes, and Policy, has devoted much of her research to understanding the healthcare barriers UI Health patients face and designing relevant interventions to cultivate improved outcomes. Over the last decade, for instance, Sharp has steered a UI Health program focused on vulnerable patients struggling to control their type 2 diabetes. The program includes sending race, ethnicity, and language-concordant health coaches directly into patients’ homes to facilitate care and directly address patient struggles.

Dr. Lisa Sharp

“We don’t do a great job in the healthcare system of considering the challenges of people taking medications,” Sharp says. “But if we can bring patient context into drug discovery, then we’re in a much better position to drive improved patient outcomes.”

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DEVELOPING TOOLS TO IMPROVE CANCER DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT

As a chemical engineering undergraduate student, Dr. Steve Lee readily admits cancer research didn’t register on his radar. When a beloved uncle passed away in 2014 of lung cancer, however, the prospects of improving cancer diagnosis and treatment options took on added meaning. Lee, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, has spent recent years leveraging his engineering background to develop new tools and methods for drug delivery research, including the creation of a microscopic tool that enables 3D tissue image sampling at cellular resolution. The innovation allows investigators to view both the cancer cell and the cancer drug in the same tissue in 3D, which can provide clinicians richer insights into how a specific drug is attacking a cancerous cell. “With this knowledge, we can then modify drugs chemically or genetically so more of the drug goes to the cancerous cells,” says Lee, who is also trying to integrate his lab’s microscopic technique with other tissue assay technologies.

Dr. Steve Lee

While Lee says his mother’s recent brain cancer diagnosis has brought an added layer of urgency and motivation to his work, he also finds inspiration in UIC colleagues like Dr. Debra Tonetti who have seen their cancer drug candidates enter clinical trials and march toward marketplace acceptance. “This is personal for me,” Lee says. “I want to move research from the bench to the clinic and impact lives.” A RESEARCH SHIFT FUELED FROM THE PAIN OF LOSS

For much of his professional scientific career, Dr. Tom Gao worked on large-scale research of proteins and peptides, including predictive work regarding the potential side effects and toxicities of certain drug interactions. Four years ago, though, Gao’s research interests shifted after his grandmother passed from metastatic melanoma—28 years after she faced her initial diagnosis and treatment of the same disease. “We all thought it was gone, but cancer’s a sneaky disease,” Gao says. “She was already in stage IV metastatic cancer when diagnosed this time, and it was too late.” Noting the need for an accessible, easy-toperform test for early diagnosis, Gao has

shifted part of his research focus to cancer diagnostics. Specifically, Gao and colleagues have developed a novel liquid biopsy method, a less invasive, better tolerated procedure designed to improve detection and treatment. In a current collaboration with UI Health and Pfizer, Gao’s team is using machine learning to predict, via exosomes separated from blood and with greater than 90% accuracy, the breast cancer patients best positioned to respond to specific treatments. Gao, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, anticipates publishing the findings of this work in the first half of 2022. “Think of the time we gain if we can perform better diagnosis and treatment on everyone,” Gao says. “If successful, we will bring something great to this world.” HAVING AN IMMEDIATE IMPACT ON PATIENTS

After earning his PharmD degree in 2012, Dr. Eric Wenzler envisioned a fruitful clinical career. After two years of residency and three years of fellowship, though, Wenzler realized the best researchers are good clinicians and vice versa. “We identify unmet needs on the clinical side and immediately utilize our research skills and knowledge to solve those problems,” Wenzler says. Improved alignment between the bench and the bedside has been Wenzler’s dominant focus since joining UIC’s faculty ranks in 2017 as an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice. Specifically, Wenzler and his sevenmember lab team investigate optimal use of existing antibiotic combinations against super resistant gram-negative pathogens for which there are no currently viable treatment options. Dr. Zack

Bulman One notable example: Seeing no clear antibiotic recommendations for patients on continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) facing bacterial infections, Wenzler and his team began examining the use of a niche antibiotic called cefiderocol. Following in vitro studies in Wenzler’s lab as well as patient modeling, the Wenzler-

Dr. Eric Wenzler Dr. Tom Gao

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led group earned the first-ever FDA-approved package insert for an antibiotic with CRRT dosing. “This work is about putting patients at the center of care,” Wenzler says. “It’s that ability to have a tangible impact on patient lives that drives our work.” ON A MISSION TO PRESERVE ANTIBIOTICS

As a high school senior, Dr. Zack Bulman rushed toward a microbiology research opportunity at the Rochester Institute of Technology. While that experience spurred a deeper attraction to scientific research, Bulman felt a disconnect between this research and its potential impact on patient care. Intent on bridging that gap, Bulman gained a deeper clinical perspective while earning a PharmD degree. A subsequent two-year fellowship in infectious disease pharmacology, meanwhile, heightened his research pursuits. Since arriving at UIC in 2017, Bulman’s investigative work has included optimizing antibiotic dosing for drugresistant bacteria and repurposing older antibiotics to combat newer resistant mechanisms. “Bacteria are fascinating to me, especially how they can evolve and become resistant to antibiotics so quickly,” says Bulman, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice.

“He knew a certain medication would help, but he didn’t fully understand how it worked at the molecular level,” Vazquez-Laslop says. That innate curiosity led Vazquez-Laslop to study biology. “The basis of medicine,” she calls it. And it has spurred a spirited career researching protein synthesis. Alongside UIC colleague Dr. Alexander Mankin, Vazquez-Laslop, a research professor at UIC’s Center for Biomolecular Sciences, studies the relationship between antibiotics and ribosomes, including the “tricks bacteria use to dodge antibiotics.” The tandem has discovered, for instance, that some antibiotics are not universal inhibitors, but rather modulators of protein synthesis. That novel finding opens the door to designing “super selective” antibiotics that only kill pathogenic bacteria. Such research, she says, unveils gaps in seemingly well-understood concepts and creates opportunities for new methodologies that enrich knowledge and fuel compelling drug discovery. “We see others using our research to pursue drug development or to reinterpret their existing data,” Vazquez-Laslop says. “We’re building knowledge that is driving therapeutic science forward.” CHASING THE THRILL OF DISCOVERY

While long interested in preserving antibiotics for future generations, that work has gained added importance for Bulman since he became a father in January 2021. He wants to avoid a postantibiotic future in which bacteria resist the available antidotes.

As a university student in Moscow in 1975, Dr. Alexander “Shura” Mankin and one of his scientific peers flipped a coin to determine their immediate research track. While the fates sent Mankin’s colleague to work on viruses, Makin himself landed with a research group investigating ribosomes.

“Those cases are few and far between now, but we don’t want that to become commonplace,” he says. “Becoming a father has helped me more fully consider the impact of what we’re doing in our lab and what it means to the future.”

While ribosomes were then a rather underexplored field, interest in the scientific area exploded across the final decades of the twentieth century and into the new millennium. Mankin, meanwhile, retained that research focus and became increasingly mesmerized himself.

UNRELENTING INQUIRY TO PROPEL DISCOVERY

Whenever Dr. Nora Vazquez-Laslop fell ill as a child growing up in Mexico City, her father, a local surgeon, prescribed the commonly accepted antidote. A naturally inquisitive soul, Vazquez-Laslop often responded with a litany of questions about how the medication worked in her body to restore health. And her father, wise as he was, struggled to share answers.

Dr. Alexander Mankin

“The more we learned, the more interesting and mysterious it all became,” Mankin says.

We’re not discovering any drugs tomorrow, but we’re laying a foundation others can build upon.

Mankin carried his ambitious inquiry to UIC in 1993, eager to bring knowledgedriven drug discovery to a process long governed by serendipity. Through more than 100 published works, Mankin’s pioneering work on protein synthesis has propelled deeper understanding of how antibiotics interact with targets in the cell and

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continues to inform ambitious drug discovery efforts at UIC and around the world. “We’re not discovering any drugs tomorrow, but we’re laying a foundation others can build upon,” says Mankin, a professor at the college’s Center for Biomolecular Sciences. “When you find something no one before you knew, it’s a thrill, and there’s a feeling we’re doing something immortal in the building of human knowledge.” UNPACKING THE MYSTERIOUS LIVES OF BACTERIA

Dr. Michael Federle calls his ongoing study of bacteria a “persistent obsession,” one fueled by the spellbinding nature of bacteria’s active citizenship in our bodies. “You can take one test tube of bacteria and find millions of mutants worth studying,” says Federle, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences.

Dr. Michael Federle

This is a personal odyssey for me, and I’ll openly admit there’s a selfish need to solve this puzzle.

After years of suspecting that bacteria were “colluding and coordinating” in the human body, Federle and his lab team continue to unearth promising findings about the intricate worlds bacteria build inside our bodies. They have, for instance, helped discover the language bacteria use to communicate with one another and recently found that bacteria also alter their surface composition to manipulate the body’s immune system. This pioneering work sets the stage for the development of drug leads to intervene with this networking and unlocks opportunities for new therapies that can diffuse conspiring bacteria. “As we identify new targets in bacteria, we can then create more precise therapies to combat them,” Federle says. He acknowledges it won’t be easy, though, as bacteria remain an elusive adversary for scientific researchers like himself. “This is a personal odyssey for me, and I’ll openly admit there’s a selfish need to solve this puzzle,” Federle says. SEEKING SOLUTIONS FOR OVARIAN CANCER

While doing research review work for the U.S. Department of Defense, Dr. Maria Barbolina has listened to personal stories of women staring down their mortality and battling ovarian cancer, one of the most unforgiving, deadliest cancers. Some, like Barbolina, are in their 40s and mothers of young children. “It hits home,” says Barbolina, an associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

In comparison to other cancers impacting women, ovarian cancer struggles to gain its share of attention. While some 330,000 U.S. women receive a breast cancer diagnosis each year, far fewer–about 20,000– hear they have ovarian cancer. “But this is not such a rare, uncommon disease when you meet the people facing it,” Barbolina says. “I see the real people behind these statistics and I’m determined to do something about it.” Since arriving at UIC in 2008, Barbolina has devoted substantial research attention to understanding ovarian cancer’s basic biological activity, which continues to miff scientific investigators. Her most promising work includes repurposing a drug originally developed for neurodegenerative diseases. Early findings suggest this therapeutic may improve prognoses for ovarian cancer patients resistant to traditional chemotherapy agents. “It’s exciting because I know what that would mean to women like those I’ve met and their families,” Barbolina says. EMBRACING RESEARCH AS AN ANTIDOTE TO PATIENT NEEDS

Seeing vulnerable patients daily as a clinician at UIC, Dr. Karen Sweiss understands better than most the urgent need for pragmatic research to drive change. “I see every day how our patients are counting on us, and that pushes me to ask important research questions,” says Sweiss, a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice. Consider Sweiss’s work around melphalan, a chemotherapy drug commonly used in treating multiple myeloma. When Sweiss’s group first began investigating melphalan pharmacokinetic (PK) variability through retrospective studies, they noted high variability in drug exposure in patients with lower hemoglobin and creatinine clearance. The group then published its experience with performing real-time melphalan PK testing to allow for rapid-dose modification based on PK estimations.

Dr. Karen Sweiss

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That work has led to a promising phase 1 trial with myeloma patients undergoing high-dose melphalan therapy. Sweiss is hopeful the results of the current trial will change the course of autologous transplants and usher in a new standard of care for ailing patients. “We believe we have the unique expertise to be able to translate this into clinical practice and impact patient care in a positive way,” Sweiss says. “And isn’t that the foremost goal of healthcare?” SPURRED BY THE CHALLENGE AND THE POTENTIAL TO CHANGE LIVES

While prostate cancer has garnered more than $1.5 billion in federal funding over the last 25 years, ovarian cancer, a disease that frequently proves fatal within five years, has received about one-sixth that amount, according to the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance. Though $276 million remains a mighty sum, the comparatively lagging investment in ovarian cancer has nevertheless hindered the pace of discovery regarding early detection tools and therapeutics.

And yet, Dr. Joanna Burdette charges on, embracing the underdog mentality and fighting to inject more knowledge and hope into the study of one of the world’s most lethal and mysterious cancers. Burdette’s lab is using organ-on-a-chip technology to understand how ovarian cancer forms, a necessary step to powering more calculated drug discovery efforts. Notably, Burdette is chasing that ambitious aim herself as well, including ongoing collaborations with natural product chemists to find new ovarian cancer drugs. One compound from a Vietnamese bush has already shown promising efficacy results in animal models. “Ovarian cancer is a difficult scientific problem, but it’s that difficulty, that challenge and how much more there is to go to change the outlook for women and families impacted by this disease, that keeps me motivated,” says Burdette, a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and associate dean for research.

Dr. Joanna Burdette

EXPANDING THE SCOPE OF PRECISION ONCOLOGY FOR EQUITY Scheduled for a groundbreaking in 2024 (pending state funding), the new Drug Discovery and Cancer Research Pavilion (DDCRP) will serve as an extension of the existing College of Pharmacy building adjacent to the University of Illinois Hospital. This new facility will house researchers, many highlighted in this piece, who will support existing drug discovery work while expanding our capacity to pursue emerging areas of translational research. The building will also serve the University of Illinois Cancer Center’s research goals, including a focus on precision oncology projects and cancer health equity. Aiming to drive improved care for all cancer patients and cement UIC’s spot as a national leader in cancer health equity research, the UI Cancer Center at UIC’s new DDCRP will pursue scientific understanding on multiple fronts to help ensure cancer patients of diverse backgrounds receive the proper treatment at the right time. Inhabiting roughly one-third of the planned 190,000-square foot DDCRP facility,

the Cancer Center will bring together investigators from colleges across UIC to advance translational cancer-battling technologies. According to UI Cancer Center director Dr. Jan Kitajewski, the physical proximity of researchers from areas such as pharmacy, medicine, chemistry, nursing, and applied health will create “focused groups of collaboration” attuned to drug discovery and clinical research. “By placing labs in the same neighborhood, we will cross-fertilize thought from various research perspectives. The goal is to promote opportunities for ambitious research to develop and evolve,” Kitajewski says, adding that the center will include investigators conducting clinical oncology trials and community outreach endeavors designed to propel innovation. “This is especially exciting in the cancer drug discovery space where we have significant opportunities working together,” said UIC College of Pharmacy dean Glen Schumock.

incorporating community voices, while its equity-focused mission further distinguishes it from many others across the United States. “We strive to ensure all patients have access to precision oncology,” Kitajewski says. The UI Cancer Center’s community-to-bench model will devote substantial attention to research on cancer issues found in Cook County and Illinois as well as health equity and drug discovery to meet the needs of its immediate community, about two-thirds of whom identify as Black or Latinx. “There has been this 50-year march to create better treatments and drugs for cancer since the inception of the National Cancer Institute, and while many successes are improving outcomes, many persistent gaps remain,” Kitajewski says. “We’re excited to narrow those gaps and improve health equity by providing all cancer patients equitable access to advanced scientific technologies and the care associated with these advances.”

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A Model for Community Engagement With her eyes and ears open to community needs, Dr. Jewel Younge serves local residents and inspires students to do the same. B Y D A N I E L P. S M I T H

When JEWEL YOUNGE, PharmD ’17, visits her local grocery store, she opens her ears to others’ comments. When she’s riding the CTA Green line train, her eyes are up, thoughtfully observing her fellow passengers.

Younge’s pragmatic spirit and commitment to community engagement has rubbed off on many UIC pharmacy students, including members of the Urban Pharmacy Education (UPHARM) program.

And for good reason.

“Dr. Younge is a source of inspiration and motivation who has taught me how to be more caring and understanding,” fourth-year pharmacy student Paul Majercak says. “She has a way about listening to others, being open to conversation, and pushing people to their greatest potential.”

“You can’t understand community needs if you detach yourself from those around you,” says Younge, a clinical assistant professor at the UIC College of Pharmacy. Embedded in underserved Chicago communities as both a clinical pharmacist and researcher, Younge continues working to understand residents’ experiences and perspectives—the trauma they feel, the healthcare challenges they face, and the reservations they carry. Such active listening and observation, after all, enable Younge to craft creative interventions that build trust and help residents better manage their own health. For example, Younge worked with Red Clay Dance Company on the city’s south side to provide blood pressure and blood glucose testing during free dance classes and launched a weekly popup program in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood—Boxville Vitals—to provide complimentary blood pressure, blood sugar, and A1C screenings to residents. While such efforts uplift individual lives in the community, they also ignite Younge’s own sense of purpose. “I wouldn’t want to pursue a career that didn’t allow me to engage with the community and fulfill needs I see,” Younge says.

Dr. Jewel Younge

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In early 2019, Majercak and a group of UPHARM peers launched The Lab Matters, a mobile science lab for urban youth. While Younge offers logistical support, the students create the curriculum and direct programming, which has included in-person and virtual activities ranging from compounding soap to extracting DNA from strawberries. Last October, meanwhile, Younge transferred ownership of Boxville Vitals to a group of UPHARM students who continue executing the program. “It’s important students lead these efforts because it teaches them how to be more cognizant of and responsive to the needs of those they’re serving,” Younge says. In fact, that’s a key lesson Majercak plans to carry into his pharmacy career. “Not every patient is going to be engaged in every minute aspect of their health, so patience and empathy are so important,” says Majercak, who presented The Lab Matters’ latest work at the recent American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ Mid-Year Poster Convention. “With that extra level of understanding and empathy, I believe I can deliver the best patient care possible.”

UIC College of Pharmacy to Launch Emergency Medicine PGY2 Residency on Rockford Campus The UIC College of Pharmacy is expanding its residency program offerings for the third year in a row with the new Emergency Medicine PGY2 Pharmacy Practice Residency Program. This university- and hospital-based program will allow the selected resident to focus on direct care of emergency department patients within Order of St. Francis (OSF) Saint Anthony Medical Center (SAMC). “The PGY2 residency offers specialty training in emergency medicine, trauma, and critical care. An academic appointment with the College of Pharmacy will be provided, and the resident may participate in didactic lectures. They will also have the opportunity to function as a copreceptor for UIC College of Pharmacy students and UIC/SAMC PGY1 residents,” explained Dr. MARIANNE POP, clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice. Dr. Pop will serve as the program director alongside Dr. OKSANA KUCHER, who will serve as the program coordinator. The PGY2 program provides the advantages of preparation for establishing a new pharmacy service and board certification by focusing on developing clinical pharmacists who will be prepared to offer medication-related care on multidisciplinary teams. Under the mentorship of experienced clinical faculty members, the pharmacy resident will transition from a PGY2 to an advanced specialty independent practitioner during the 12-month program. OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center is a Magnet® recognized 254-bed level I trauma center, burn center, and DNV-certified comprehensive stroke center. SAMC

is one of 15 hospitals within the OSF HealthCare System and has been nationally recognized for its management of strokes and coronary artery bypass graft surgeries. It is currently the primary practice site for the residency program, but there are other opportunities and future partnerships that are being explored and coordinated. Dr. Kevin Rynn, vice dean and clinical professor, shared his excitement about the upcoming PGY2 program. “New residency programs are desperately needed to meet the needs of our profession,” he remarked. “We’re happy to partner with Order of St. Francis to bring great training opportunities to pharmacy school graduates and advance professional postgraduate training.” The college will be participating in the American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists Personal Placement Services interview sessions and the Pharmacy Online Residency Centralized Application Service for candidate application evaluation and plans to match using National Matching Services. The emergency medicine PGY2 resident will start the program on July 1, 2022. Dr. Pop concluded her thoughts by expressing the importance of these programs at the college. “As emergency medicine pharmacy services continue to grow worldwide, we hope to develop a resident who will create and provide pharmacy services for patient populations that need extra resources. In addition, we strive to foster a passion for teaching in our resident graduates.”

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Dr. David Newman Brings Microbes to a Plant Party (a.k.a. the Farnsworth Lecture) BY JESSICA CANLAS

Professor Guido Pauli, director of the Pharmacognosy Institute, believes Newman is a perfect speaker for the event as his work reflects the late Norm Farnsworth’s dedication to natural products, as well as a depth of knowledge that speaks to more than 65 years in his field. “You can’t get a better speaker for a natural products seminar,” says Pauli, who also happens to hold the title of Norman R. Farnsworth Professor of Pharmacognosy. “David Newman has a vast and broad knowledge—and is a very entertaining presenter.” In his lecture, provisionally titled “Are Microbes the ‘True’ Sources of Bioactive Compounds Isolated from Multicelled Organisms Such as Plants and Marine Invertebrates?” Newman intends to speak about the involvement of microbes in the production of what were originally thought to be biologically active compounds produced by the organism from which they were isolated. Dr. David Newman

Hosted by the UIC Pharmacognosy Institute, the annual Norman Farnsworth Lecture honors the legacy of one of the college’s most distinguished educators and pharmacognosy researchers, globally renowned as an iconic figure in the study of medicinal plants and natural products. This year, the college is honored to host Dr. David Newman, former chief of the Natural Products Branch (NPB) in the Developmental Therapeutics Program of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), where he worked for nearly 24 years. Retired from this post, Newman is anything but retired from science and works as a consultant and publishes actively in the area of discovery and development of drugs sourced from natural products.

“What we hope people take away from the Farnsworth Lecture,” says Pauli, “is that pharmacognosy is really at the heart of drug research and the source of a lot of the medicines that we use to treat people successfully today.” “[We want everybody] to know how exciting it is to be a part of that.” The 9th annual Farnsworth Lecture can be viewed online at pharmacognosy.pharmacy.uic.edu/events/2022 -farnsworth-lecture/.

A renowned expert in microbial and marine chemistry, Newman is a natural products chemist who played a key role in developing the NCI’s prolific collection of extracted natural products specimens that includes many plants and was established in the effort to discover new anticancer drugs. “I was extremely surprised and honored as my background is in microbial and marine chemistry, not plant-based, so as I said to Guido [Pauli], I was very surprised and honored by that request,” Newman says of his invitation to the college.

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Dr. Norman R. Farnsworth

Professor Frederick Siegel Innovative Teaching Award 2021 BY JESSICA CANLAS

Taught asynchronously in what Sarna intentionally designed as “a low-stakes environment,” students are able to view lectures at their own pace and design their own schedules around writing and contributing to online discussions. At the start of the semester, students are assigned to one of several drug/disease-pair groups, around which they are given writing assignments for two distinct audiences: patients and healthcare providers. “[For patients], they create a medication guide using patient-friendly, inclusive language,” Sarna explains. “The second assignment is more formal, using scientific language to answer a [clinical] question using trial data, standards of care, and other important drug and disease state information.” Dr. Kathy Sarna

KATHY SARNA, PharmD, RES ’16, clinical assistant professor and drug information pharmacist, never thought she’d end up teaching. Despite that, she’s just been given an award for it. For her efforts designing and instructing her PMPR 450 medical writing class, Dr. Sarna has been recognized as the recipient of the 2021 Frederick P. Siegel Innovative Teaching Award. “I’m just very honored,” says Sarna. “It’s awesome to be recognized for something you’re so passionate about. “I also share this award with all the drug information faculty, as this course would not be possible without their collaboration and commitment to delivering high quality instruction.” The award was established in 2012 to honor novel teaching and learning methods in the classroom at the College of Pharmacy and is named after the late professor Frederick P. Siegel, an esteemed faculty member who was known for his unique, yet effective, teaching style. Dr. Siegel taught at UIC for more than 35 years and was himself lauded multiple times with honors, including the UIC Excellence in Teaching Award and the college’s Legacy Achievement Award. Sarna’s version of PMPR 450 was borne out of a curricular revision five years ago when the previous course in medical writing was restructured, leaving an opportunity for a more focused class that allows students greater freedom to explore their own voices and build skills.

Students are also assigned editing partners and are evaluated on their peer review skills, which are based on an established rubric, as well as revisions of their own work. “One of the biggest concepts I wanted to demonstrate with the setup of the course is . . . that writing is not a linear process,” Sarna says. “AMA rules will change, styles will change, and employers will also have their own requirements—so you have to learn to adapt. Writing is recursive, so you go through different steps of the writing process numerous times with each piece until you get it to a state you’re satisfied with.” Sarna, who admits to a lifelong love of writing, didn’t have much occasion for it in pharmacy school but discovered her opportunity while on rotation at a PBM company, writing monographs and drug-class reviews. “I fell in love with [that] kind of work, so I looked into career paths where I could use my PharmD to do medical writing.” Sarna’s journey led her to the Drug Information Group at UIC and, eventually, the classroom. “If someone had told me [during pharmacy school] that I was going to be a drug information pharmacist and professor, I wouldn’t have believed them,” she says. “I guess I found my calling.”

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Dr. Soojin Jun is a board-certified geriatric pharmacist in Illinois and Wisconsin. She is also a certified professional in patient safety (CPPS) and a certified professional in healthcare quality (CPHQ). After losing her dad to many gaps in healthcare as a minority caregiver,

Three Reasons Why Recognizing Pharmacists as Providers Can Help Solve Public Health Crisis in the United States Here are three ways pharmacists can help address the two most pressing problems of healthcare in the United States. B Y S O O J I N J U N , P H A R M D ’ 1 3 , B C G P, C P P S , C P H Q

one of them a medication adverse event, she changed her career from a wedding videographer to a pharmacist. Currently, she works as an inpatient pharmacist and also a Salk Health Activist fellow at Jewish Healthcare Foundation. She is a cofounder of Patients for Patient Safety U.S., a group of patient safety activists who are committed to activating U.S. healthcare according to the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030 of the World Health Organization. She specializes in medication therapy management and believes empathy in healthcare can make healing possible in any relationship of healthcare. She has experience in both inpatient and outpatient pharmacies and has worked as a population health pharmacist for heart failure patients. She is also an ambassador for the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to patient safety worldwide. She passionately speaks up about patient safety, patient rights, health equity, the expansion of roles of pharmacists in public health and policy, and patient advocacy for voiceless patients.

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

After losing my dad to medical gaps and adverse events from medications as a minority patient, I decided to change careers and went from being a videographer to being a pharmacist. Through my naive yet passionate endeavor, I thought I could improve healthcare one patient at a time. I was so eager for change that I created a business plan with my friends for a pharmacist-mediated digital health solution that would allow patients and caregivers to coordinate care together with doctors and hospitals, an idea directly inspired by my personal experience as a caregiver before graduation.

it created a conversation. California became the first state to recognize pharmacists as providers in 2013. Since then, we have 37 states recognizing pharmacists as providers. However, lack of federal recognition still slows innovation that we desperately need, especially in cutting costs and optimizing therapies for chronic illnesses. I know billions of dollars are often attributed to a lack of “compliance” with medications. To me, this is a tunnel-visioned estimate of the cost. (By the way, patient advocates cringe over that word, compliance, so if your organization claims to be patient-centric, please consider avoiding the word.)

I interacted with entrepreneurs from StartUp Health, PillPack, and incubator 1871 (now Matter) as well as venture capitalists and competed in different competitions, including South by Southwest. I enrolled in the health informatics graduate program to make the app a possibility with a targeted clinical trial for minority patients in mind. I could not continue after I became pregnant with my third child, but I gained valuable lessons and observations from this experience.

The first and foremost value of recognizing pharmacists as providers is that we can help deprescribing medications and guide patients to healthier lives for many chronic illnesses. Many insurance and government sponsored programs are wasting money by “restricting” how pharmacists should practice under their laws and regulations when they can better use the time and money by “guiding” how pharmacists could practice as providers.

There were not many pharmacists in the middle of this innovation movement and conversation because we could not bill as providers; innovators did not look to pharmacists, with whom they could and should partner, to bring changes. At the time there was a petition going around started by Sandra Leal, now the president of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), asking for federal recognition of pharmacists as providers under Medicare. I decided to help spread the word with another student in Texas, Steve Soman. We created a Facebook page, “Recognize Pharmacists as Providers,” and posted the efforts on the Facebook pages of other colleges of pharmacy. The original Change.org petition was moved to the White House petition site, gained traction, and received a response as promised after reaching the target of 25,000 under the administration of Barack Obama. Although federal recognition was not achieved and the response was far from what we were looking for,

P H A R M A C Y.U I C . E D U

There are many pharmacists who are burnt out of practicing in the boxed set of rules that clearly do not bring the real results we want to see in patients. Many functional medicine pharmacists who look at patients as a whole, for example, have created their own practices. However, because pharmacists are not providers in many states, the results pharmacists can bring are more regional than widespread. With telehealth and digital health tools, this is changing. Still, too many barriers continue exist for pharmacists. The second equally important value of recognizing pharmacists as providers is that we can guard patient safety more effectively. Traditionally, nurses and doctors have been in the main roles of patient safety and still are. However, as Lucian Leape, the renowned father of the patient safety movement, had written in his published paper, pharmacists’ participation in intensive care unit rounds reduced medical

errors significantly. This only makes sense considering pharmacists’ extensive education. We are the last guards of patient safety before medications go into the bodies, especially in outpatient settings, not to mention monitoring and adjusting the doses. Despite the beneficial evidence, pharmacists are still not considered as main players in many settings outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA has long been supportive of pharmacists as providers. Pharmacists’ scope of practice is much wider in the VA setting, and it is growing significantly in rural areas and in outpatient clinics due to many benefits in this setup. When the third leading cause of death in the United States is medical error—although it could very well be the first as there is no way to track the real number with current healthcare model—we desperately need more pharmacists dedicated to patient safety, guarding patients, and advocating for changes in policies. We need more pharmacists to speak up for patients. The third equally important value of recognizing pharmacists as providers is cutting the cost of

healthcare in conjunction with the first value, which brings the second value to be realized. Not all chronic diseases need medications. Many medications should be viewed as temporary measures until patients can get back on their feet again. Yet, getting prescriptions has become an expectation from patients and what providers provide when patients come in for treatments without proper assessment and followup. We probably all know friends and families going from one doctor to another, not finding answers but getting more prescriptions. By empowering pharmacists as care coordinators and patient advocates, patients will have someone to look out for in their unorganized and dangerous care. Many pharmacists also specialize in pharmacogenomics (discipline of medicine and genes) and nutrigenomics (discipline of nutrients and genes) that can guide selecting the right treatment and identifying the right nutrients to supplement. Now, ordering these labs also requires provider status in many states.

Reprint authorized by Dr. Soojin Jun, from original Medium.com post (10/31/21).

You get the idea.

Dr. Lisa Sharp Receives Inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Impact Award BY ANDREW FAUGHT

In the United States, African Americans are twice as likely as whites to die from diabetes, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The discrepancy, one of many documented examples of health disparities afflicting underrepresented groups, is a professional passion for Dr. LISA SHARP, professor in the Department of Pharmacy Systems, Outcomes, and Policy. Her research focuses on some of the reasons for varying health outcomes, which she says include systemic racism and language barriers. “There is no biologically plausible reason that a person of color should be diagnosed with diabetes at a higher rate than European Americans,” Dr. Sharp says. “These differences in health are driven by structural inequities in our society.” In November, Sharp received the College of Pharmacy’s inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Impact Award, presented for her three-decade-long advocacy and “hands-on involvement and leadership” in the field, notes Dean Glen Schumock. “From the bottom of my heart, having individuals recognize that I’m trying to address social justice and being a voice for people that may not always have their voices heard, is the greatest honor that I can have,” Sharp says. “On the other hand, I look forward to the day when such an award doesn’t need to exist.”

In her teaching, Sharp says she challenges stereotypes and assumptions that are endemic to healthcare. In addition to race, she also focuses on the healthcare challenges of those with disabilities or differing gender identities. “I’m very aware of the language and images I use to challenge assumptions that we, as white people, have relied upon,” she adds. “I think a lot about windows and mirrors—the notion of a person on the outside looking in, but not necessarily being a part of what’s going on. I try to think about providing mirrors, so students are seeing and hearing things that reflect them.” As a clinical health psychologist, Sharp’s primary area of research focuses on the health of minorities and underserved populations in an attempt to understand the direct and indirect effects of stress and depression on chronic illnesses. Her work also considers patient participation and communication in the doctor-patient relationship and ecological, social, and psychological influences on health. Disparities in care, meantime, can happen in a variety of ways, from being conveyed inaccurate directions because of language barriers, to rude interactions with providers, Sharp says. “Unpleasant interactions with healthcare providers can impact patients.” she adds, “It can be life or death, because the patient is not going to come back.”

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CLASS OF 2020

WHERE ARE T H E Y T O D AY ?

LA ST S P R I N G , 1 6 2 I N D I V I D U A LS E A R N E D T H E I R P H A R M D D E G R E E from the UIC College of Pharmacy, adding their

respective names to a long line of distinguished graduates from an institution that traces its origins back more than 160 years. Like so many before them, the Class of 2020 immediately transported the skills and knowledge they gained from their studies into serving others and propelling healthcare. From clinical pharmacy roles to corporate positions, from residencies to research fellowships, the Class of 2020’s varied career paths underscore the versatility of the UIC PharmD degree and the diverse ways in which UIC alumni can—and do—impact lives, improve healthcare, and serve communities with a spirited mix of acumen and energy.

D R . A N N I TA M AT H E W Mathew is completing the second year of her postdoctoral training in ambulatory care pharmacy at the Boise VA Medical Center in Idaho. She hopes to continue optimizing the training she has received through the VA to practice as a mid-level provider in ambulatory care settings while simultaneously increasing access to high-quality healthcare in underserved communities.

“The power of the UIC PharmD program is rooted within the professionals who work tirelessly to help develop strong UIC pharmacists. Reaching out to my UIC preceptors and alumni to elicit their insight and guidance has added great value in the pursuit of my career goals.”

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

D R . D E VA L PAT E L Patel is serving as a pharmacy manager at a CVS in Chicago’s northwest suburbs, a first step toward larger career aspirations in pharmacy administration or management. Long term, he is interested in applying his knowledge to an entrepreneurial venture, staying close to the field of pharmacy while also exploring other opportunities in the healthcare space capable of enriching lives and supporting wellness.

D R . J E N N Y PA R K Completing the second year of a health economics outcomes research (HEOR) fellowship with Genentech and the University of Washington, Park continues developing her HEOR skill set in areas such as economic modeling and claims analyses. In her career, she hopes to “strategically and proactively” leverage evidence to identify unmet needs, optimize care patterns, increase patient access, promote health equity, and improve patient outcomes.

“Through UIC, I was fortunate to build a strong professional network, enjoy great mentors, and discover that a pharmacist should never stop learning.”

“At UIC, I learned that a strong work ethic and adaptability invite opportunities. While HEOR is not the traditional route many PharmDs pursue after graduation, UIC widened my perspective and helped me discover where I can passionately maximize my potential.”

P H A R M A C Y.U I C . E D U

D R . LO A N V I Vi balances a full-time role as remote clinical/MTM pharmacist for Optum under UnitedHealth Group with part-time duties as a clinical pharmacist at South Shore Hospital for CompleteRx. In the coming years, she aims to gain licensure in multiple restricted states, earn certification in diabetes education, and pursue opportunities in ambulatory care.

“UIC positioned me for professional success with various rotations that provided me rich real-world experience and taught me to be patientfocused, empathetic, and patient. Those are lessons I’ve been applying regularly here in my early career.”

CLASS OF 2020 BY THE NUMBERS

162

PHARMD GR ADUATES

34% MALE

86%

29%

89.51%

CAME IN WITH A BS DEGREE OR HIGHER

FIRST-TIME NAPLE X PASS R ATE

66% FEMALE

GR ADUATED DURING A PANDEMIC

FIRST-GENER ATION COLLEGE STUDENTS

COMPLETED A POSTGR ADUATE RESIDENCY

JOB PLACEMENTS BY REGION

COMPLETED A FELLOWSHIP

JOB INDUSTRIE S BY PE RCE NTAG E

36% COMMUNITY PHARMACY 33% HOSPITAL

WEST

10%

MIDWEST

78%

EAST

13% PHARMACEUTICAL 4% MANAGED CARE 2% AMBULATORY CARE 2% GOVERNMENT

SOUTH

2% SPECIALTY 3% CONSULTING 2% RESEARCH 1% UNKNOWN

T O P E M P L O Y E R S (class of 2020)

A B B V I E • A D V O C AT E A U R O R A H E A LT H • A L B E R T S O N S /J E W E L- O S C O • A M I TA H E A LT H • A S T E L L A S • B O I S E V A M E D I C A L C E N T E R • C V S H E A LT H • G E N E N T E C H • H O R I Z O N T H E R A P E U T I C S • J E S S E B R O W N V A M E D I C A L C E N T E R • J O H N H . S T R O G E R J R . H O S P I TA L O F C O O K C O U N T Y • K I T E P H A R M A • L O Y O L A UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER • MEIJER • MOFFIT CANCER CENTER • NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL H O S P I TA L • O P T U M R X • N O R T H S H O R E U N I V E R S I T Y H E A LT H S Y S T E M • P F I Z E R • P I E D M O N T F AY E T T E H O S P I TA L • S A N O F I G E N Z Y M E • S U T T E R H E A LT H • U C D A V I S H E A LT H • U O F C O L O R A D O H E A LT H • U N I V E R S I T Y O F C H I C A G O M E D I C I N E • U I H E A LT H • U N I T E D H E A LT H G R O U P • W A L G R E E N S

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You’ve Got Mail! In 2021, nationally, 5% of all graduating pharmacists sought nontraditional career opportunities within the pharmaceutical industry where they will find exciting and rewarding roles in the development and commercialization of new medicines. Like last year’s group, our P4 students again received word virtually of their fellowship placements.

Ashik Jayakumar

Nearly 10% of our Class of 2022 received word this past December regarding their postgraduate placements. A few of our P4s who are sure to be future pharma leaders are Rachel Goldberg, Jola Ignaciuk, Ashik Jayakumar, Dagmara Kutrzuba, Tiffany Kuo, Shani Patel, Vassi Tsolova, and Peyton Wade.

Dagmara Kutrzuba

Be it postgraduate opportunities within the pharmaceutical industry, further clinical training by way of a residency (to be announced during the annual match day in the spring), or offerings from a plethora of employers, our graduates will soon join fellow alumni in leadership positions in significant pharmacy, healthcare, and pharmaceutical companies across the country and around the world.

Vassilena Tsolova

Jola Ignaciuk

Peyton Wade

Tiffany Kuo

Shani Patel

Rachel Goldberg

Help Us with a Further Boost of Curb Appeal and Leave Your Mark on the College! For a donation of $500 to the college’s Dean’s Fund for Excellence, you can get a brick engraved with up to 64 characters placed in our beautiful POZEN Plaza—a gift from Dr. John and Mrs. Clare Plachetka and the Plachetka Family Foundation.

J O I N OV E R 40 0 F E LLOW A LU M N I A N D F R I E N D S . PLE A SE SE IZE TH I S O PP O R T U N IT Y A N D O R D E R YO U R PAV E R AT

GO.UIC.EDU/ PLAZAPROJECT BY J UNE 1.

If a minimum of 10 bricks are sold during this campaign, they will be installed later this year. If that threshold is not met, we will hold off installation until we have a minimum of 10 bricks to add to the plaza.

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Investing Future B Y

D A N I E L

P .

S M I T H

in the

Endowed scholarships created through UIC’s IGNITE campaign demonstrate the spirit and commitment of the College of Pharmacy community.

S I N C E U I C L A U N C H E D the university-wide IGNITE campaign in 2017, alumni and friends of the UIC College of Pharmacy have created 49 endowed scholarships totaling more than $2.6 million.

Many of the scholarships nobly aim to ease the financial burden of pharmacy education and reward those committed to the profession and patient welfare. Some honor former classmates or mentors. Some look to propel careers in specific areas, such as rural pharmacy or community practice. Others stimulate opportunities for first-generation college students or those from underrepresented backgrounds. Jim and Phyllis White

Whatever the scholarship’s criteria might be, the support promises to have an undeniably positive impact on UIC pharmacy students, a quarter of whom receive financial support while pursuing their studies. “These scholarships serve as a lasting legacy that will long help bridge our students’ financial need gap,” assures Ben Stickan, the college’s associate dean of advancement. With the addition of the 49 scholarships created through the IGNITE campaign, the College of Pharmacy now features 77 endowed scholarships. Stickan hopes the college can reach 100 endowed scholarships when the five-year INGITE campaign closes at the end of 2022.

Dr. Jerry and Judy Bauman

“It’s an ambitious goal,” Stickan says. “But there’s a spirit to our institution, and so many in our community who recognize the importance and value of pharmacy education at UIC and just how important this education is to the students as well as the future of patient care.” Here we highlight five recently endowed scholarships at the College of Pharmacy:

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

P H A R M A C Y.U I C . E D U

JIM AND PHYLLIS WHITE SCHOLARSHIP

When Jim White, BS ’65, tells people he attended UIC on a shoestring budget, they often dismiss the comment as hyperbole. Only White isn’t exaggerating. “Literally, I had one pair of shoes, which I fixed with tape and cardboard,” the 79-year-old White recalls. White, who grew up in the central Illinois town of Petersburg, attended UIC thanks in part to a scholarship awarded by a physical therapy agency. (He thanks his mother’s creative lobbying for that.) And he worked throughout college, including earning cash by performing in a singing trio with college roommates Bern Hapke, BS ’65, and Dan Warfield, BS ’65, while also having the good fortune of being “bailed out” a few times by former College of Pharmacy dean George Webster. White’s ability to endure and capture his degree propelled a professional career that included positions in corporate and institutional settings in addition to establishing one of Illinois’s first hospital-based community pharmacies. “The excellent education and training I received at UIC prepared me for the many diverse opportunities I enjoyed in my career and helped create a life I never could’ve imagined,” says White, who retired in 2017. The upward mobility ignited by his UIC degree, in fact, spurred White and his wife, Phyllis, to establish a revocable trust and earmark a “worthwhile” percentage of the funds to UIC. The resulting Jim and Phyllis White Scholarship will support PharmD students with a demonstrated financial need.

Phyllis White says she and her husband “understand the important role advanced education can play in a person’s life” and the couple, married since 1966, calls the scholarship “a meaningful promise.” “If we can ease the financial burden of pharmacy education and provide others a smoother path to achieve their dreams, then that’s something worth doing for us,” White says. BARTELS AND BAUMAN FAMILY SCHOLARSHIP

In 2010, Dr. Jerry Bauman and Dr. David Bartels played central roles in launching the College of Pharmacy’s Rockford campus, an endeavor that enabled the college to regionalize its programs and expand its student base to better address the needs of Illinois citizens, particularly those outside the state’s core metropolitan areas. While Bauman, as the college’s dean, handled much of the organizational aspects of creating the Rockford campus, including accreditation, hiring, and planning, Bartels operationalized the effort as the campus’s regional dean. Today, the thriving and growing Rockford campus with its special focus on rural healthcare serves a testament to Bauman and Bartels’ spirited work and trust-filled relationship, a connection forged across years of carpooling into the Chicago campus from their respective Naperville homes, professional collaborations, and genuine friendship, including taking family vacations together. In a continued show of commitment to the Rockford campus, Bauman approached Bartels about establishing a scholarship for Rockford PharmD students interested in rural practice. Bartels and his wife, Carol, immediately agreed, setting plans in motion for the Bartels and Bauman Family Scholarship, a name honoring the families’ close ties and enduring respect for one another.

“Jerry didn’t have to give us a hard sell,” says Bartels, who retired from UIC in 2016 after 38 years with the university. Beyond their affinity for the Rockford campus, Bauman and Bartels—natives of downstate Decatur and an Elginarea farm, respectively—both champion the importance of pharmacy care in rural communities, so many of which are losing access to a licensed pharmacist and earning the “pharmacy desert” label. “It’s so critical people around our state have access to pharmacy care,” says Bauman, dean emeritus after leading the college from 2007 to 2017. “We felt it important that students with an interest in serving in rural communities have that opportunity and receive the support they need to earn their degree and enter practice to serve patients in small towns in Illinois and the Midwest.”

Dr. David Bartels and Carol Bartels

DR. ALICE ROMIE, PHARMD ’94, MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP

As Dr. Alice Romie, PharmD ’94, battled breast cancer a second time, her long-time mentor, UIC College of Pharmacy associate dean for clinical affairs Dr. Andy Donnelly, broached an uncomfortable but important topic with her. Donnelly hoped to create a scholarship in Romie’s honor at UIC, a perpetual tribute to a woman Donnelly calls “unbelievably kind and always positive.” “Though I hoped it would be a moot point,” Donnelly confesses. Sadly, it was not. Not long after Donnelly’s conversation with Romie in early 2021, the 52-year-old mother of two passed away on May 12.

Drs. Andy Donnelly and Alice Romie

“True to form, she fought a courageous battle,” Donnelly says of Romie, who came to the United States from Vietnam in 1975, conquered an earlier bout with breast

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SPRING 2022

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

cancer, and endured the loss of a son, Samuel, in 2007 while thriving as a collaborative, admired professional. Donnelly worked with College of Pharmacy officials to establish a formal scholarship in Romie’s name. He then began contacting some of Romie’s closest colleagues and past coworkers, including ones from Fresenius Kabi, where Romie served as director of professional strategies at the time of her passing, to solicit contributions. He also leaned on Dr. Brad Cannon, PharmD ’94, to rally support from members of the closeknit Class of 1994.

Drs. Susan Veremis Maddux and Mike Maddux

“If you knew Alice one bit, then it’s no surprise to see the energetic response this scholarship created,” Cannon says. “Alice was graceful, incredibly intelligent, and a light in the room.” The Dr. Alice Romie, PharmD ’94, Memorial Scholarship honors Romie’s spirited life. The scholarship will be awarded to PharmD students with a demonstrated financial need who can also detail how they have overcome a significant life challenge and plan to leverage that experience to help others. “It’s nice to have student applicants giving thought and reflection here because that exemplifies Alice,” Donnelly says. “She was someone who faced hardship and kept pressing forward in service to others. MADDUX-VEREMIS SCHOLARSHIP

While growing up in the rural southern Illinois town of Louisville, Dr. Susan Veremis Maddux, BS ’81, PharmD ’87, didn’t know the uplifting professional opportunities that awaited her. After earning her PharmD from UIC, however, Maddux began an inspired, diverse career in pharmacy that included a decade on the UIC College of Pharmacy’s clinical faculty, working at the UIC Medical Center, and managed care positions that catapulted her into her current role as the chief pharmacy officer for UnitedHealthcare’s Employer Group Division. “My education at UIC enabled me to do so many things in my career and demonstrated the importance of pharmacy education and the profession as a whole,” says Veremis Maddux, whose husband, Dr. Mike Maddux, RES ’80, the executive director of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy is, like his wife, a former UIC College of Pharmacy faculty member. Pairing an earnest gratitude for the opportunities UIC afforded each of them with a sincere desire to unlock similar opportunities for others, the couple established the Maddux-Veremis Scholarship to support PharmD students with demonstrated financial need. “We didn’t have to think long about creating something like this,” says Veremis Maddux, who attended UIC on a scholarship herself. “It made perfect sense for us to do.”

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

P H A R M A C Y.U I C . E D U

The couple hopes their scholarship enables students with limited financial resources to attend the UIC College of Pharmacy and pursue their professional ambitions just as they were both fortunate to do. “We want to make sure pharmacy education is accessible and affordable to many different individuals,” Veremis Maddux says. “We believe in the value of professional education and the doors it opens for people to fulfill personal goals and improve healthcare in their corner of the world.” BARTELS FAMILY PHARMACEUTICS LAB SCHOLARSHIP

Whenever Dr. Dave and Carol Bartels would listen to their son, UIC College of Pharmacy clinical assistant professor Dr. Brad Bartels, talk about the students in his pharmaceutics lab courses at UIC, they noticed an undeniable enthusiasm in his voice. After students were sitting in classes, listening to lectures, and running statistics on a computer, they looked forward to getting into the pharmaceutics lab to apply their classroom learning in a hands-on way. “We could see how much this meant to Brad and how much it seemed to mean to his students as well,” Carol Bartels says. In establishing the Bartels Family Pharmaceutics Lab Scholarship, the family aims to further energize Brad Bartels’s laboratory-based classroom and encourage deeper study of pharmaceutics, an increasingly critical professional area as the number of compounding pharmacies across the United States declines. “Compounding is an important part of pharmacy practice, but somewhat of a dying art,” says Dave Bartels, a 38-year UIC College of Pharmacy faculty member and former vice dean of the college’s Rockford campus. “We want to support those interested in this area and those who show promise in it.” Brad Bartels, the college’s 2021 Golden Apple Award winner, hopes the scholarship not only motivates students to do well in their pharmaceutics lab courses, but that its eventual recipients leverage the scholarship’s funding to pursue additional training in compounding. In a competitive job market in which compounding skills are becoming more and more valuable, Brad Bartels believes students with a strong grasp of pharmaceutics can differentiate themselves and uplift their career prospects alongside patient care. “In addition to lightening the financial burden of their pharmacy education, we hope this scholarship opens future opportunities for the recipients,” Brad Bartels says. “There’s an important place in our profession for individuals who can do compounding with competence and confidence.”

U I C C O L L E G E O F P H A R M AC Y

VIRTUAL RESEARCH DAY 2021 NOVEMBER

12,

2021

T H I S Y E A R ’ S C O L L E G E O F P H A R M A C Y R E S E A R C H D AY WA S A S U C C E S S . With 89 posters presented virtually and significant participation from our alumni and external colleagues who served as scientific judges, we presented over $25,000 in scholarships and awards. Dr. Paul Hergenrother, the Kenneth L. Rinehart Jr. Endowed Chair in Natural Products Chemistry Professor from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Chemistry, delivered a memorable keynote lecture, “New Strategies for Anticancer and Antibacterial Drug Discovery.” Events like Research Day would not be possible without our presenters and judges, along with our sponsors, university supporters, alumni, friends, and their involvement and support for this event. Dr. Paul Hergenrother

C O N G R ATU LAT I O N S TO A L L O F O U R P O ST E R AWA R D W I N N E R S ! For details on the winning posters and the noteworthy science behind them, please visit RESEARCHDAY.PHARMACY.UIC.EDU. In addition to Research Day, the Office of the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education recently hosted our annual College of Pharmacy “Images of Research” competition. The purpose of the competition is to assemble a portfolio of the most innovative and creative images to convey the range of research taking place in the college. These images will be used to promote, advance, and represent our college in both printed and digital media.

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U I C C O L L E G E O F P H A R M AC Y

VIRTUAL RESEARCH DAY 2021 NOVEMBER

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2021

IMAGES OF RESEARCH CONTEST 1ST PLAC E GLIA GLUE By Jessica Benitez-Burke, PharmD Student and Graduate Research Assistant, Dr. Eric Wenzler’s lab, Department of Pharmacy Practice Fluorescent Flames! Psuedomonas aueruginosa, glowing under certain light conditions, is used to test antimicrobial resistance against this specific strain via E-test methods as displayed in the background. The bacteria colonies are shown in the UIC Flames logo. For details on the various images or research taking place, visit GRAD.PHARMACY.UIC.EDU/IMAGES-OF-RESEARCH-2/.

OUR THANKS TO THIS YEAR’S SPONSORS

ALUMNI PROFILES

Dr. Mashal Alshazi Develops Vaccines to Save Lives BY JESSICA CANLAS

Born in Saudi Arabia, Alshazi now works in Riyadh as assistant professor of pharmaceutical biotechnology in the Infectious Diseases Vaccination Research Chair and the College of Pharmacy at King Saud University (KSU). “I feel that I have the mandate to start this kind of work because there is a gap in vaccine development in Saudi Arabia and in the region itself,” he says. He and his team focus their work on responding to specific local health concerns. An example is Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, which first appeared in 2012, with 80% of cases in Saudi Arabia. “There was no interest in developing a vaccine [elsewhere], so now we believe it is our job as scientists in Saudi Arabia.” Although the disease is still considered rare, Alshazi believes in being prepared. “We are generously funded by the Saudi Ministry of Education to develop a vaccine against MERS in collaboration with the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. “If we can develop a vaccine now, it will be ready when we need it.” Meanwhile, with the entire globe still in the midst of a pandemic, Alshazi and his team, in collaboration with King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, a research facility in Riyadh, are taking a different approach to developing their own COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. “We collected COVID-19 samples [found in] Saudi,” Alshazi explains. “We are trying to identify the local sequence and design a vaccine based on that

sequence. This will make our vaccine more relevant to the region. “Changing the sequence will directly affect vaccine efficacy.” Alshazi admits that a passion for science fueled his entry into biotechnology. After completing his bachelor’s in pharmaceutical sciences at KSU, he worked as a hospital pharmacist for a year before returning to the university as a teaching assistant. A year and a half later, he was awarded a full scholarship by KSU to continue his education, which he used to enroll in the UIC College of Pharmacy, where he investigated antimicrobial drugs and resistance mechanisms of antimicrobial-producing bacteria in Dr. Alexander Mankin’s lab. After earning his doctorate, Alshazi joined the faculty at KSU College of Pharmacy and was subsequently selected for a special research program at Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development in Houston.

M A S H A L A L S H A Z I · P H D ’ 15

MASHAL ALSHAZI, PhD ’15, is working on an innovative platform for vaccines development.

“After I finished the program, I went back to Saudi Arabia with the ambition to start a center for vaccine development,” he recalls. “So I established my team here, working on mRNA and protein-based vaccines.” As a result, Alshazi is now the vice director for Infectious Diseases Vaccination Research Chair at KSU. In addition, Alshazi also volunteers with Ready2Respond, a global partnership that works directly with the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control to strengthen the pandemic preparedness of low- and middle-income countries. He also works as a vaccines and biologics consultant with the Saudi Food and Drug Authority. “I am happy with what I am trying to do now with my team here in Saudi Arabia, but we still have a lot of goals to be achieved.”

SPRING 2022

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ALUMNI PROFILES

Dr. Kersten Weber Tatarelis Helps Health Care Evolve

K E R S T E N W E B E R TATA R E L I S · P H A R M D ’ 0 7, R E S ’ 0 8

BY JESSICA CANLAS

KERSTEN WEBER TATARELIS, PharmD ’07, RES ’08, honed a knack for challenging the status quo at UIC as a student, extern, and resident. Today, she brings that independent-minded approach to healthcare leadership at one of the country’s largest health systems. Weber Tatarelis rose to the position of vice president of pharmacy operations for Advocate Aurora Health in 2018, shortly after the merger of Illinois’s Advocate and Wisconsin’s Aurora healthcare systems. In that role, she’s responsible for pharmacy operations at hospitals in northern Illinois, while also overseeing a large remote clinical pharmacy services team and several system pharmacy operations, including clinical practice, medication safety, and antimicrobial stewardship. Healthcare leadership appealed to the strategic thinker in Weber Tatarelis, she said. “Leading through change, helping others with developing their purpose and vision is really my passion. I love big strategy. I love challenging conventional thinking.” That creative and independent streak first blossomed at UIC, where Weber Tatarelis also completed a pharmacy practice residency. “The mentors I had always pushed you to think differently, to think outside the box, challenged you to think beyond what’s right in front of you,” she said. “That type of thinking helped me to be more

confident in the way I look at problems and solutions. It set me up for success.” The approach has served Weber Tatarelis well in a fast-changing industry, she added. “Healthcare is dynamic and ever-changing, and we’re challenged to continue to evolve with it. That is also the most rewarding thing, to not think so conventionally, but to think forward.” Weber Tatarelis began her post-UIC career at the University of Chicago as a surgical intensive care pharmacist, where she helped develop residency and clinical programs. She next moved on as a clinical coordinator at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, rising through clinical pharmacy leadership positions until her VP promotion. Even today, she continues to advance her thinking in the field at the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign’s online MBA program. “For me, the MBA is trying to close gaps in areas that I don’t feel as confident in and that I’d like more exposure to,” she said. “I’d also like more exposure to the way other industries operate.” Weber Tatarelis said she’s most proud, though, of her family. “Having a demanding career with four small kids at home—that is what I am most proud of. Keeping up with them is the hardest part!”

Deanna Horner Is Comfortable Being Uncomfortable BY JESSICA CANLAS

DEANNA HORNER, PharmD, RES ’08, says she does well with a little discomfort in her life. Horner, who is VP of specialty pharmacy management with UnitedHealthcare’s Government Programs, found that educational and career transitions strengthened confidence in her ability to grow.

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“I discovered . . . that I was just developing more quickly than if I had stayed in one place,” she recalls. “Each time, I learned, ‘I can do this,’ and it reinforced that I can do different things, take the knowledge that I already have and build on that.” As an undergrad, Horner, who hails from Downers Grove, Illinois, spent much of her time volunteering in clinical settings

at UIC, where her mother worked as a mechanical engineer. She was intrigued by seeing clinical pharmacists in action and realized it would make an ideal career path—combining her interest in science with a desire to serve others. After earning her degree in bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, she traveled west to the University of California, San Francisco, School of Pharmacy, where she focused on critical care.

title at Tenet Healthcare, where she oversaw four hospitals in the Chicago market.

Horner then returned home for her PGY1 residency at UIC, where she sought to expand her practice experience in critical care. “There were a lot of things in residency at UIC that got me comfortable with being uncomfortable,” she says.

After three years at Tenet, Horner realized it was time, once again, to step up her discomfort level.

At the beginning of residency, Paloucek required residents to complete the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. “I identified as having a high burnout risk,” Horner says. “[Since then] I’ve been mindful of that, making sure that I maintain balance between my career and personal life. That was useful to know, especially early on in my career.” Horner went on to complete her PGY2 in critical care at University of Kentucky before returning to UCSF for a full-time position as a critical care pharmacist, where, in addition to patient care, she was able to teach and work with interns, residents and fellows on rounds.

“At Tenet, none of the pharmacists reported to me. I was providing recommendations and guidance to the pharmacy director and staff, more like a consultant. I wanted to go from leading through influence to leading a team directly.” Horner moved on to UnitedHealthcare, where, after two years as a clinical pharmacy manager, she was promoted to senior director of specialty pharmacy management, leading a team of pharmacists and technicians in the medication adherence program supporting UHC Medicare Advantage.

DEANNA HORNER · PHARMD, RES ’08

Horner recalls the daily noon reports, led by residency director Dr. Frank Paloucek. Residents who had been on call the previous night were required to present reports of their work for team review. “That was an absolutely fantastic learning experience, to hear how coresidents and preceptors would approach problems. It was a wealth of knowledge.

“I was able to take that experience and develop teams of pharmacists in the hospital setting and outpatient clinics,” she recalls. Continuing on her path toward population-level healthcare, Horner took on the responsibility for establishing an antimicrobial stewardship program at Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park.

“Our goal with that program was to improve medication-taking habits of our members so they could be adherent to their [regimens].” Another two years later, Horner moved on to her current, more clinically focused position at UHC as VP, developing strategy and implementing medical drug benefit programs. Now, she and her team perform outreach to Medicare members to ensure access and adherence. “We want to get to patients before they have those negative complications of their disease states,” Horner explains.

“I also got the opportunity to do some quality improvement work, both for our patients with sepsis and for those in stroke management. As part of those projects, I started to see more broadly how I could impact population health, so I became interested in what clinical programs we could implement and how we could evolve those.”

At UHC, Horner feels she’s found a home, “helping people live healthier lives and making the healthcare system work better for everyone.” One of the factors that drew her to a larger company—UHC employs more than 3,500 pharmacists—is opportunity. She encourages students and fellow alumni to take advantage of any chance to learn from diverse vantage points.

Horner was also able to step out of her comfort zone to work as interim clinical pharmacy manager, further gaining the experience she needed to transition back home to a permanent role with the same

“It can be scary,” Horner admits. “But with each transition, if you try something new, you’d be surprised. You’ll find you can do more than you’d expect if you just continue to challenge yourself.” SPRING 2022

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ASK AN ALUMNUS

Denise Scarpelli, PharmD ’96, MBA Executive Director of Ambulatory Pharmacy and Business Development, University of Chicago Medicine Dr. Denise Scarpelli has served as the executive director of ambulatory pharmacy and business development at the University of Chicago since 2017. Previously she held many leadership roles at Walgreens, leading Pharmacy Operations in Chicago for over 20 years. Dr. Scarpelli earned a Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Illinois Chicago College of Pharmacy in 1996 and a Master of Business Administration from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2021. She is currently the chair of the Illinois Board of Pharmacy and on the Dean’s Advisory Board for Midwestern College of Pharmacy. Denise has also served as the chair of the ASHP Section of Specialty Pharmacy Practitioners Section Advisory Group (SAG) on Business Development in 2020. She serves as a committee member of many ASHP groups. Scarpelli serves as the clinical leader within the actuarial organization, guiding financial initiatives related to medical and pharmacy spend across the organization and influencing the risk management of major developments in the industry, such as gene therapy and the COVID-19 vaccines. As a pharmacist, how can I best prepare to adapt to the inevitable changes in the next ten years? As I reflect on three decades of experience, pharmacy has changed dramatically. The one thing I came to learn is that change is constant, and as a pharmacist, you need to be aware of the changes, or you will not be relevant to the industry. To adapt, you need to be reading about the changes in healthcare, network with other pharmacists and healthcare providers to discuss the changes, and create strategies around how you fit or your practice fits with those changes. I have seen so many pharmacists not keep up with the changes and have been left behind due to not changing with the profession. What are you working on right now, and what have you learned from it? Currently, I am building a central fill pharmacy and a home infusion pharmacy. I have learned that no matter how much experience you have, there are always new things to learn. I have learned to reach out to my

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colleagues in the industry to pick their brains to learn from them. Also, no matter how much planning you do, there are always hiccups along the way with a project and having a flexible plan to let you adjust to the changes. The changes happening in the world around the supply chain and resources have made new projects difficult, and we need to learn that new projects might take longer than anticipated. You should always have a contingency plan when developing new pharmacy services. With three decades in pharmacy, what were the things that most influenced or informed your career? Over my three decades in pharmacy, the things that influenced or informed my career were the organizations I became involved with and the networking contacts I developed outside of my work environment. These contacts helped me learn what else there was to do in pharmacy and helped me make connections for career growth and opportunities. I advise students all the time to get involved. It will help their careers and network outside your work environment; it enables you to grow professionally.

Being involved with the board of pharmacy has also informed and influenced my career. In every aspect of my job or projects I am involved with, I always have my legal hat on to ensure we are following the rules of the law. Pharmacy law is as important as the clinical side of pharmacy; it helps protect the health and safety of our patients. What career highlight has given you the most satisfaction given your incredible career? Some of the highlights might not seem so significant anymore, but to me, it was exciting to see the advances in the industry over the years. The first one was when pharmacists could start vaccinating. When I was at Walgreens, this was a game-changer for the profession and showcased that a pharmacist can provide clinical services in a retail setting. The next one was the collaborative agreements and standing orders; the creative pharmacists were building pharmacy services within a clinic and demonstrating the impact that can improve outcomes. The other one was the Affordable Care Act and all the initiatives involving pharmacists such as meds-2-beds programs in reducing readmissions or pharmacists embedded in clinics to help with MTMs. All things were just ideations or in their infancy stages when I first started as a pharmacist. Has being a woman in leadership/pharmacy impacted you in any way? Being a woman in leadership has impacted me and how I work. I don’t think this is isolated to pharmacy but all woman leaders. We have come a long way, but there is still work to be done to have the same equality as men leaders. When I first started in leadership, only a few women were in leadership roles. I learned early on that I can impact future women leaders by mentoring and encouraging them to take on these roles. When you still look at the profession, which is predominately women, there are still more men in leadership roles, but it is improving, so we still have work to promote more women into these roles. What was the most important thing you learned while in pharmacy school? Who has influenced your career? The most important thing I learned is that it is challenging to know all aspects of pharmacy and know all medications, but by the training we received, we understand how to look it up, conduct research, and ask the right questions to make the best clinical decision for the patient. In pharmacy, it is continuous learning every day from your patients and colleagues.

There have been many people that influenced my career over the years. I have had many mentors that I still lean on today for advice. But the most significant influencer was my mother; she continuously pushed me to do more, set high goals, and told me to say yes to every opportunity that came my way. You’ve had success at several professional stops—how? First to stop, listen, and learn that professional stop and your team. Never come into a new position with the plan to change it, but come in with a strategy to listen and learn, have the team get to know you and you them. As you understand, look for improvement, efficiencies, and new approaches. The team will respect you and, in the long run, follow your lead over time. This has worked time and time again. Also, celebrate the wins even if they are little wins. A team wants to be on the winning team and continue to support the team’s success. My success has been the amazing teams I had the opportunity to work with over the years. Second, anticipate and accept innovation. As human beings, we are often resistant to change. In the face of change, our first instinct is to question it, resist it, and dismiss it as being short-lived. Those who anticipate innovation, embrace it, and evolve with it are the ones who will be successful long-term. Where do you see pharmacy/healthcare going in the years ahead, and what opportunities do you see for our current student pharmacists? Over the next few years, there will be a growth in telehealth and telepharmacy—a focus on providing care in patients’ homes with the hospital at home and home infusion. With the continued growth of specialty, there is a need for pharmacists to work in this space as well. Also, with collaborative agreements, there is a need to have more specialized pharmacists to provide clinical services in ambulatory. Ambulatory services continue to grow with healthcare shifting patient care from hospital to home. Patients recover more quickly at home and have less risk of exposure to infections. The other area is analytics; there is a lot of patient data available, there will be a need for pharmacists to publish outcomes of the great work they are doing. The data and research can provide more prescriptive prescribing with pharmacogenomics. This is the area of pharmacy where there will be an opportunity in the future, and we need pharmacists trained to provide this type of care.

SPRING 2022

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ALUMNI NEWS

PEDRO ABREU, PharmD ’10, started a new position as clinical pharmacist at UnitedHealth Group.

division of Walgreens, and she was recently appointed to the National Association of Specialty Pharmacy Board of Directors.

ALI ALOBAIDI, PharmD ’18, MS ’20, was recently promoted to associate director, Global Health Economics and Outcomes Research– Neuroscience, at AbbVie. JEANNETTE ASH, BS ’76, MS ’85, was recently appointed director of consulting and clinical services at Forum Extended Care Services Pharmacy. RUDINA ATIEH, PharmD ’20, recently joined Walgreens as a staff pharmacist. MARK BACHLEDA, PharmD ’99, MBA, was recently appointed as the chief commercial officer at Galera Therapeutics, Inc. Dr. Jasmina Bjegovic

Dean emeritus and distinguished professor emeritus JERRY BAUMAN, BS ’76, PharmD, has received the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Cardiology PRN Lifetime Achievement Award.

JASMIN BROWN, PharmD ’19, was recently promoted to clinical pharmacy specialist at the Karmanos Cancer Institute.

Dr. Lakesha Butler

KAREN BERGER, PharmD, RES ’11, recently joined Nova Southeastern University College of Pharmacy as an assistant professor. JASMINA BJEGOVIC, PharmD ’12, recently joined the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy as senior manager, competency assessment. ALEXANDRA BROADUS, PharmD ’08, leads the Specialty Health Solutions team within the Pharmacy and Healthcare Strategy

LAKESHA BUTLER, PharmD, RES ’06 recently received the APhA Academy of Pharmacy Practice & Management (APhAAPPM) Distinguished Achievement Award in Pharmacy Service, which recognizes an APhA member in any practice setting who has distinguished themself and the profession through outstanding performance in pharmacy practice. Dr. Butler led 14 national pharmacy organizations against racial injustice. She serves as the inaugural director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Community Service equity roundtable, which also included President Biden’s Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider (IL-10), public health partners, educators, and parents of kids who were now eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine. The panel discussed the importance of pediatric vaccinations, education, and the need to have a continued focus on health equity.

Nehemiah Ewing (age 11) receives his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine surrounded by (left to right) his father and District 60 Board President Brandon Ewing, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, and Congressman Brad Schneider

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AMEIRA JALOUGA-LAMBAZ, PharmD ’07, appeared on WGN News on November 9 for a Biden administration event promoting COVID-19 vaccinations in underserved minority, pediatric patient populations (children ages 5–11) held at the Jack Benny Middle School in Waukegan, Illinois. Dr. RINA SHAH, PharmD ’05, represented Walgreens on the event’s vaccine

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Earlier this year, in the midst of the pandemic, HELEN JUNG, PharmD ’03, MBA, was able to partner with Seattle Washington State Korean Association and a group of highly dedicated RiteAid pharmacists and community volunteers to vaccinate over 1,000 Washingtonians in four hours. Recently, the community expressed their appreciation and gratitude with a bit of public recognition on behalf of RiteAid and Bartell Drugs.

CHRISTOPHER CAMPEN, PharmD ’07, was recently promoted to senior medical science liaison at Janssen Hematology.

SUCHI GUNASEKARAN, PharmD ’12, started a new position as clinical pharmacy manager at City of Hope.

SUSAN CHUCK, PharmD ’98, recently joined Merck as executive director, Global Medical Affairs–HIV Treatment and Prevention.

DAN GRATIE, PharmD ’17, was promoted to director, strategic partnerships, at AESARA.

MARC COOK, PharmD ’95, was recently promoted to director, Diabetes Central Region, at Novo Nordisk.

JAY HILAO, PharmD ’05, started a new position as senior manager, investigational product management, at CVS Health.

LAUREN CUNNINGHAM, PharmD ’19, is now a certified diabetes care and education specialist (CDCES).

HOLLY HOFFMAN-ROBERTS, PharmD ’98, recently joined Paratek Pharmaceuticals as director, field medical.

KAITLYN DALTON, PharmD ’19, recently joined St. David’s Healthcare as a critical care clinical pharmacist.

Ozzie Feliciano, BS ’80 In a city that’s just shy of 200 years old, it’s not often one finds a business that’s survived more than half of that time. Last fall, OZZIE FELICIANO, BS ’80, owner and operator of Deitch Pharmacy, shuttered the doors on his business that has stood as a pillar on the corner of Wood Street and Chicago Avenue in the West Town neighborhood for more than a century. Feeling the strain of insurance practices and recent changes in healthcare access, he decided it was time to retire in 2020 after practicing pharmacy for 40 years. Despite being unable to find a buyer, Feliciano decided to remain open to offer support to the bilingual community he served for decades when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Dr. Bedrija Isic-Nikocevic

Jess de Jesus

JESS DE JESUS, PharmD ’90, MBA/ HCM, recently joined Beth Israel Leahy Health as their senior vice president and chief pharmacy officer. KRYSTAL DO, PharmD ’21, recently joined Comprehensive Pharmacy Services as a clinical staff pharmacist. TAMMY ESPINOZA, PharmD ’99, was recently promoted to senior manager, specialty clinical development at CVS Health. MICHAEL GANNON, PharmD ’15, MBA ’21, recently joined Loopback Analytics as director of product management.

BEDRIJA ISIC-NIKOCEVIC, PharmD ’08, assistant professor of clinical sciences at Roosevelt University, was recently named Educator of the Year (2021) by the Illinois Pharmacists Association. The annual award recognizes leaders and committed educators. Dr. IsicNikocevic teaches self-care and nonprescription therapy courses and serves as the director of professional laboratories. JANINA JANIK, PharmD ’13, started a new position as clinical pharmacy specialist at the VA Great Lakes Health Care System, VISN 12 Clinical Contact Center.

Feliciano began at Deitch as a pharmacy technician six months before graduating from the UIC College of Pharmacy, eventually purchasing the business in 2001. He enjoyed the independence of owning his drugstore while maintaining direct contact with healthcare providers and patients. Throughout the years, Feliciano has served as an active caregiver in the community, collaborating with local clinics to offer services to its residents and even founding the Chicago Avenue Business Association in the early ’80s, which partnered with local law enforcement to reduce crime in the area. In retirement, Feliciano is pleased to spend more time with his aging parents.

KELSEY JOHNSON, PharmD ’20, started a new position as clinical pharmacist at CVS Specialty.

NIRMAL GHUMAN, PharmD ’12, MPH, was recently promoted to senior manager, trend product management, at CVS Health.

JACQUELINE JOURJY, PharmD, FEL’10, recently joined Reveles Clinical Services as a clinical research pharmacist.

SONAL GOYAL, PharmD ’10, MPH, recently joined the FDA as a data scientist.

SOOJIN JUN, PharmD ’13, started a new position as death and dying fellow at the Jewish Healthcare Foundation.

SPRING 2022

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ALUMNI NEWS

LAURIE NOSCHESE, PharmD ’12, was promoted to chief of pharmacy at Lovell FHCC. BOLU OLADINI, PharmD ’18, started a new position as scientific associate at PRECISIONvalue. FARAH OSMAN, PharmD ’17, is now a staff pharmacist at Walmart. GENNARO PAOLELLA, PharmD ’17 (pictured to the left with Dean Glen Schumock), serves in the Office of the Attending Physician (OAP) and provides pharmacy services for U.S. Congress and Supreme Court members. LEAH PATEL, PharmD, RES ’08, has started a new position as senior medical scientist at Amgen. MICHELLE KELLER, PharmD ’05, was promoted to senior principle clinical research pharmacist at Pfizer.

ADELA LUPAS, PharmD ’20, recently joined Piedmont Fayette Hospital as a clinical pharmacist.

KRZYSZTOF KOC, PharmD ’15, started a new position as clinical pharmacist at Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Dr. Koc also started a new position as pharmacist PRN at Walgreens.

CARISSA MANCUSO, PharmD, RES ’03, ’04, recently joined Eisai as a senior manager, medical information.

AUDREY SUH KROLICKI, PharmD ’01, was recently promoted to executive director, scientific publications and medical education, at Astellas Pharma. VARUN MOHAN KUMAR, MBBS, MPH, MSc, FEL’16, is a cofounder of OneVenture. DANIEL KY, PharmD ’15, recently joined QueensCare Health Centers as an outpatient pharmacy manager. YANA LABINOV, PharmD ’11, RES ’12, ’13, was recently promoted to senior medical information manager, specialty, at Astellas Pharma US.

Dr. Joe Sasseen

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SANJAY MEHTA, PharmD ’01, MBA, recently joined Pfizer as director, outcomes and analytics. ALBERT MEI, PharmD ’17, was promoted to CareMore national pharmacy lead—ambulatory pharmacy manager and digital innovation at CareMore Health. ALEXANDER METZGER, PharmD ’21, has joined the Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital team as a clinical/staff pharmacist. HSUAN-MING YAO, PhD, ’05, recently joined Proteovant Therapeutics as a senior director, clinical pharmacology.

KIRSTEN LARSON, PharmD ’20, MS, started a new position as clinical pharmacist at Baltimore Medical System.

MIRIAM MOBLEY SMITH, PharmD ’95, recently joined the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy, University of Hawaii at Hilo, as interim dean and visiting professor.

SAJEEL LATIF, PharmD ’20, started a new position as pharmacy manager at Jewel-Osco.

ZACHARY MOLDWIN, PharmD ’20, was recently promoted to clinical data scientist at the FDA.

LIZ LESSER, PharmD ’14, was recently promoted to director, medical affairs, ophthalmology, JEM&A TA Lead at AbbVie.

CANDY NG, PharmD ’11, recently joined CVS Caremark as a clinical pharmacist.

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SEEMA PATEL, PharmD ’12, RES ’13, ’14, recently joined the Cleveland Clinic as a clinical pharmacy specialist. FELICIA (BARTILOTTA) PRYOR, PharmD ’13, was quoted in an article in Forbes. ANNA PURDUM, PharmD ’98, MS, was recently promoted to head of U.S. market access at Kite Pharma. SAMONA RAWAL, PharmD ’20, was promoted to associate manager, Regulatory Affairs—Oncology, at Astellas Pharma. LAMAR QUINN, PharmD ’11, recently joined Dallas Healthcare Pharmacy as a staff pharmacist. NICOLE SALATA, PharmD ’10, MSc, MBA, recently received her MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology. JOE SASEEN, PharmD, RES ’95, presented on “TG Lowering and CVD Risk Reduction” on December 8 at the Heart of Cardiology Conference, a national conference that drew more than 2,000 participants. CRAIG SCHAEFER, PharmD ’21, recently joined CVS Specialty as a clinical pharmacist. CHRIS SCHRIEVER, PharmD ’99, was promoted to clinical associate professor at the UIC College of Pharmacy.

ZACK SESSIONS, PharmD ’19, started a new position at Kyowa Kirin, Inc., as medical science liaison, hematology/oncology. BONNIE (VU) SETO, PharmD ’14, started a new position as pharmacy manager/pharmacist in charge at CVS Pharmacy. KAREEMA SIDDIQUI, PharmD ’21, recently joined CVS Health as a staff pharmacist. DAVID SILVA, PharmD ’19, is now a board-certified cardiology pharmacist (BCCP). SUNDIP SINGH, PharmD ’20, was promoted to pharmacy manager at Walgreens. KATIE SUDA, PharmD, MS, FEL ’02, was recently honored with the college’s Research Impact Award at our 2021 Research Day program. ANGELINE TRACY SOUVANNASING, PharmD ’17, recently joined Optum as a clinical pharmacist–utilization management.

ANDREA TENBARGE, PharmD ’12, was recently promoted to advisor, medical affairs strategy and transformation, at Eli Lilly and Company.

In January, and after 45 years, DAVE WEGMAN, BS ’77, RPh, MS ’80, FASCP, retired as director of business development at Green Tree Pharmacy.

NISHANT THAKAR, PharmD ’12, received the Faculty of the Year Award from the Class of 2023 at Roosevelt University.

MICHELLE WEISMAN, PharmD ’19, RES ’20, started a new position as clinical pharmacy specialist on the Specialty Pharmacy team at UChicago Medicine.

ALEXANDER THORP, PharmD, RES ’21, joined ThedaCare as an ambulatory care clinical pharmacist. DECLAN TUFFY, PharmD ’19, recently joined Intersect ENT as a clinical scientist. RUSSELL USAUSKAS, PharmD ’12, was recently promoted to pharmacy procurement supervisor at the Edward Hines VA Hospital. KRISTINE VALEN, PharmD ’16, started a new position in Portland, Oregon, serving as a pharmacist at Walgreens. PAMELA VITALO, PharmD ’21, recently joined Consonus Healthcare in Glendale, Arizona, as a pharmacist.

What has changed in your life? PLE A SE LE T US K N OW AT

GO.UIC.EDU/ ALUMNIUPDATE

TIERA WILLIAMS, PharmD ’20, recently joined Acadia Healthcare as a staff pharmacist. SUSAN WOELICH, PharmD, RES ’10, started a new position as clinical pharmacist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. ZHAOJU “DAISY” WU, PharmD ’20, recently joined Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital as a clinical staff pharmacist. SHAN XING, PharmD, PhD ’17, was recently promoted to director, U.S. Medical New Product Planning, at Takeda.

Dr. Katie Suda

PMPR 329 | Dean’s Leadership Forum Alumni and friends shared their career experiences and provided memorable advice (virtually) with over 130 second-year students in our fall Dean’s Leadership Forum elective (PMPR 329). A huge thank you to our fall line-up of speakers who our students will not soon forget. DELICIA ADAMS, PharmD ’99, BCGP, Chief Executive Officer, Senior-Ally Home Care KASEM AKHRAS, PharmD ’94, Senior Director, Translational Access, Geneconomics & Outcomes Research—New Products, Novartis Gene Therapies SAAD ALI, PharmD ’13, Client Formulary Director, CVS Health CHRISTINA BERBERICH, PharmD ’12, MPH ’12, RD Head of Regulatory & Policy Affairs, Bobbie JASMINA BJEGOVIC, PharmD ’12, Senior Manager, Competency Assessment, National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) ANDY DONNELLY, BS ’80, MBA ’84, PharmD ’87, Clinical Professor and Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, UIC College of Pharmacy, and Director of Pharmacy and PGY2 Residency Program Director, University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System

DANIELLE GILLIAM, PharmD ’96, MPH ’14, Senior Medical Liaison, Obesity, Clinical Development Medical and Regulatory Affairs, Novo Nordisk

S THURSDAYPM - 12:30 11:30 AM

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JEFFREY HERZFELD, PharmD, MBA Managing Director, CLX, LLC

RUM IP FO will

ERSH

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LEAD A N ’S

ping of develo ortance working, the imp ness, net onal skills. Describe nal aware erpers professio ation, and int nic involved commu staying of e n. ortanc the imp graduatio Explain fession after in the pro nning. pla t career studen Formulate

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PhD

09/02

AKH KASEM ’94

RAS

lational tor, Trans & mics Senior Direc Genecono Access, Research - New Outcomes Novartis Gene Products, Therapies

10/21

GLEN SCHU

ELLIE JHUN, PharmD ’16, PhD ’16, Senior Clinical Development Scientist, OneOme CHRISTINA PETRYKIW, PharmD ’90, RES ’91, ’92, CDCES, Clinical Pharmacist, Medicaid DUR Coordinator, Academic Detailer, and Clinical Instructor, UIC College of Pharmacy

PharmD utive Officer, Exec Care Chief Home Senior-Ally

LD is Dean A, PhD, HERZFE ois rmD, MB JEFFRE, YMBA LLC ity of Illin CK, Pha PharmD Director, CLX, Univers SCHUMO ging cy at the GLEN T. NELLY fessor in 10/28 Mana Pharma lege of also Pro ANDY DON es MBA ’84, 8). He is of the Col BS ’80, ’87 s, Outcom ce 201 tem ciate (sin o rmD Sys Asso ssor & rs, UIC rmacy at Chicag d from 09/09 Pha Clinical Profe al Affai as Hea ent of Pha for Clinic macy and ved artm ser r Dean of Phar PGY2 the Dep Directo re he also College of Pharmacy & tor, founding icy – whe Director Program Direc ital viously and Pol logy and was pre Residency of Illinois Hosp m pidemio 018. He Universityth Sciences Syste has rmacoe N 2013-2 3) and for Pha and Heal ‘16 ELLIE JHU 02-201 Center ‘16, PhD cy ent earch (20 of the UIC PharmD al Developm Pharma omic Res r Clinic me lege of coecon OneO RAUSA 11/04 Senio in the Col Pharma Scientist, MARGARET member lty ’05 facu PharmD ident, Medical Drug Illinois been a cist (in rs. Vice Pres and Specialty th, rma yea /16 pha 25 d 09 Oncology egy and Grow license for over d Strat Clinical Healthcare ock is a rd Certifie um re Boa Sch a eviCo 3Dr. was n) and from 199 shingto ist (BCPS) and Wa cist Special pharma cotherapy a clinical pital Pharma SAAD ALI ked as s in hos ‘13 has wor l position PharmD ulary Director, 2014. He t Form cy and IC manageria th 11/11 Clien several of Pharma A BJEGOV CVS Heal JASMIN‘12 and held consin. g Director cy Wis udin in l incl pita PharmD ger, Competen cy – ity sau Hos pharma Senior Mana National /23 te Univers e at Wau ssment, Boards of Sta 09 Car n Asse tory gto n of .D.), Respira Washin Associatio (NABP) ’91, FEL ’92, ton (Pharm rees from RES hing , Pharmacy deg ’12 rmD Was PhD Pha ity of He has pleted MBA ’94, Univers also com n, m.), the Ph.D.). He r and Dea (B.Phar versity .A., and cy Professo the Uni ITA Pharma UIC (M.B ning at JON ION‘08 ege of arch and the wship trai UIC Coll ock’s rese PharmDGlobal Medi cy and fello Schum tor, ical residen n Systems UIC. Dr. 11/18 Direc act, clin Informatio gemen gton and CHRISTINA Mana nomic imp Vendor Pharma US IW of Washin ticals and in the eco PETRYK’90, RES ’91, is ceu Astellas se erti pharma rmD been ES and exp 09/30 Pha safety of ’92, CDC st, Medicaid arch has and RES ss, rese maci s, ene Phar tion icies. His Clinical dinator, Academic effectiv s or pol ate founda DUR Coorand Clinical service FDA, priv Detailer, UIC College of related He has , AHRQ, panies. Instructor, by the NIH tical com Pharmacy or co-PI. funded E rmaceu g as a PI DANIELL’96 ous pha in fundin r 200 and vari PharmD ca million ted ove r Medi d over $6 and edi Clinic 12/02 Senio receive editorial Obesity, ent authored the has CHRISTINA on ock Developm y ICH currently BERBER’12, MPH ’12, RDy Dr. Schum & Regulatoris and ks. He is mD y & Polic Novo Nord cotherapy and boo 10/07 Phar Regulator of Pharma articles Head of ie te Editor journals rs, Bobb ocia the Affai Ass ch. is board of ics and ss Resear ctivene co Econom ative Effe Pharma tained Compar rd for Sus rnal of the Jou d the Awa the he receive rature from In 2014, the Lite System utions to HealthContrib of . an Society ndation Americ HP) Fou cists (AS Pharma

AU G 26

JON IONITA, PharmD ’08, Director, Global Medical Information Systems and Vendor Management, Astellas Pharma US

ADAMS DELICIA’99, BCGP

PharmD

MOCK

MARGARET RAUSA, PharmD ’05, Vice President, Medical Oncology and Specialty Drug Clinical Strategy and Growth, eviCore Healthcare SAM RIMAS, PharmD ’13, BCPS, Pharmacy Manager, Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital

SPRING 2022

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

ALUMNI NEWS

Elliott Ruth Muran

DIPA (SHAH) DENOUDEN, PharmD ’14, and husband Christian welcomed their third child; daughter Lainey Hope was born on December 7, 2021. She joins big sister Lyla and big brother Leo. Juliana Rose Acosta

KAITLYN (KALATA) ACOSTA, PharmD ’15, and husband Jason welcomed their first child; daughter Juliana Rose was born on October 6, 2021.

Alfa Asfaw

HANEEN AMMAR, PharmD ’15, and Shady Yassin welcomed their third child; daughter Huda Yassin was born on September 24, 2021. Huda joins big sister Sereen and big brother Noah.

BRUCE and LINDA GRIDER, BS ’74 and BS ’75, respectively, became grandparents for the third time; granddaughter Eleanor Marie Sheble was born on December 19, 2021, weighing 8lbs. 3 oz. and measuring 20.5” long. Eleanor joins her big cousins Henry (6) and Oliver (3). YASH JALUNDHWALA, PhD ’16, MS ’10, and DIMPLE MODI, PhD ’16, welcomed a baby girl, Jiya Jalundhwala, on January 4, 2022.

ALEMSEGED AYELE ASFAW, PhD ’20, and wife Fanus welcomed a baby boy, Alfa, on September 7, 2021. SEAN CHANTARAPANONT, PharmD ’11, and Amanda Seddon, PharmD ’12, welcomed their second child, daughter Sophie May, on November 22, 2021. She joins big brother Oliver (18 months).

Charlie James Deng

CASSANDRA (CLEMENT) DAVIS, PharmD ’12, and husband McKenney “Mac” welcomed their second child; son Richie was born December 12, 2021, at 5:17 a.m. He joins big brother Kenney (2). MORGAN (MICHALEK) DENG, PharmD ’14, and husband James welcomed a son, Charlie James Deng, on August 5, 2021, weighing 7 lbs. 1 oz. and measuring 19” long.

Kai James Wojtanowski

CAROLYN DEWART, PharmD ’15, and husband Mike Wojtanowski welcomed their first child; son Kai James Wojtanowski was born on September 24, 2021, weighing 9 lbs. 3 oz. and measuring 20.75” long.

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

P H A R M A C Y.U I C . E D U

David Dean Dolejs

VICTORIA RAMOS, PharmD ’19, and husband Moshe Dolejsi welcomed their first child; son David Dean Dolejsi was born on August 24, 2021. HASAN SIDDIQUI, PharmD ’17, and Shyema welcomed their first child; son Ezan Jamal Siddiqui was born on November 19, 2021.

Yash Jalundhwala

NICOLE (SINSABAUGH) JOYCE, PharmD ’14, and husband Joshua welcomed their second child; son Arlo James was born on November 3, 2021. He joins big brother Isley (4). BRITTANY (LEE) KARAS, PharmD ’17, and husband Andrew welcomed their first child; daughter Blakely Drew Karas was born on November 4, 2021, weighing 7 lbs. 6 oz. and measuring 19.25” long. TATYANA (LAWRECKI) LAURETO, PharmD ’10, and husband Thomas welcomed their second child; daughter Olivia Rose Laureto was born December 10, 2021, at 1:30 p.m. weighing 7 lbs. 4 oz. and measuring 20” long. She joins big brother Anthony (2).

Neil Rao and Aiden Johnny Uppuluri

CASSIE (STROMAYER) MURAN, PharmD ’14, and Adam welcomed their first child; daughter Elliott Ruth was born September 23, 2021, at 1:04 a.m. weighing 6 lbs. 13 oz. and measuring 18” long.

LAUREN (STAMBOLIC) TRAJKOV, PharmD ’19, and husband Dejan welcomed their first child; son Jason Daniel Trajkov arrived on December 14, 2021, weighing 5 lbs. 7 oz. and measuring 19” long. ELLEN UPPULURI, PharmD, RES ’16, and her family welcomed two new additions on Sunday, September 26, 2021. Neil Rao Uppuluri, weighing 5 lbs. 11 oz. and measuring 18.5” long, and Aiden Johnny Uppuluri, weighing 5 lbs. 10 oz. and measuring 19” long.

MAY

ALEX KANTOROVICH, PharmD ’12, married Annette on May 8, 2021, in Rolling Meadows. The newlyweds honeymooned in Hawaii.

SEP

VIVIAN LIANG and DAVID WU, both PharmD ’16, were married on September 18, 2021, in southern California. The happy couple have delayed their honeymoon but shared their big day with UIC Pharmacy Alumni.

SEP

OCT

KENNETH CAPULONG, PharmD ’18, married Donna Yeung on Octorber 9, 2021. The newlyweds honeymooned in Hawaii.

OCT

SEP

JOSIAH BAKER, PharmD ’21, and ISABELLA (RUIZ) BAKER, P3, were married on September 18, 2021.

SEP

CARMEN KOTFISZ, PharmD ’16, married Jessica Perez-Cardwell, MD, on October 31, 2021, in Antigua, Guatemala. MICHELLE SMITH, PharmD ’19, married Jeremy Weisman on September 25, 2021, at Ashley Farm in Yorkville, Illinois. The newlyweds honeymooned in Cancun, Mexico.

OCT

CRAIG HERNANDEZ, PharmD ’20, married Becky Hernandez on September 18, 2021. The happy couple honeymooned in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

KATHERINE KATSIVALIS, PharmD ’19, became engaged to Peter Simantirakis.

MYRNA RIVAS, PharmD ’18, married Jesus Perez on October 2, 2021, in the Dominican Republican. The newlyweds honeymooned in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

SPRING 2022

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

FRANKLIN D. HITER, BS ’54, MS ’62, passed away on April 8, 2019. Franklin was a WWII Army Air Corps veteran who dedicated his life to family and community service in the Village of Alsip as civil defense director and trustee and through many other Alsip community projects and activities. He also served many years on the IL District 218 School board.

Franklin D. Hiter

Chicago and the north suburbs. Larry was an avid sports fan and loved opera, theater, and travel. MILLER H. KALOM, BS ’59, passed away October 23, 2021. JOAN M. MASTERS, BS ’74, passed away on July 16, 2021. She was retired and a resident of Chesterfield, Missouri.

LAWRENCE JAY HORWITZ, BS ’64, passed away on September 21, 2021. Larry was born in the Bronx and moved to Chicago as a teenager. After graduating from Senn High School and the College of Pharmacy, he went to Coown Parkway Drugs, which consisted of several drugstores located in

Richard W. Piepho

RICHARD W. PIEPHO, BS ’54, passed away on December 2, 2021. Richard served two years in the U.S. Army after graduation. He operated South Park Pharmacy in Park Ridge, Illinois, following his service. He sold the business and retired in 1992 to Palm Springs, California.

Carl M. Rish

CARL M. RISH, BS ’55, passed away on January 3, 2022. Carl was a proud member of the Class of 1955. After graduation, he worked in retail and clinical settings before becoming an owner and partner of Menard Dempster Pharmacy in Morton Grove, which he operated for 15 years. Carl then finished his career working for 22 years at Walgreens, retiring in his 80s.

Lawrence Jay Horwitz

e r u t fu Y TODA THE PLAN VEST IN N I AND

of ollege C o g a Chic y the Illinois f o y t ened b i s h r t e g v n i n s. lly s tre The U friend ntinua d o n c a i s i acy alumn u ’l l Pharm ic ated d e ope yo d h r u e o w f , goals osit y o nefit gener ur ow n o y w ill be n t o a t h t c e t l if ref me. rred g A s you r life ti a defe u r o y e r d i f te ons llege a also c the co

T H E P H A R M A C I ST

P H A R M A C Y.U I C . E D U

We can provide you the language to include the University of Illinois Foundation for the benefit of the college in your will or living trust and also custom language for a beneficiary designation via a retirement plan, whole-life insurance policy, or payable on death (POD)/transferable on death (TOD) account or to further designate your bequest in a way that is meaningful to you. Please contact Associate Director of Gift Planning Geoffrey Hammond, JD, for more information on how to invest in the future at the UIC College of Pharmacy. Office of Gift Planning and Trust Services University of Illinois Foundation 1305 W. Green St. (MC 386) Urbana, IL 61801 217.332.5714 | gh15@uif.uillinois.edu

What will be your legacy? Helping future pharmacy students thrive and bring positive change to the world is a focal point of the UIC College of Pharmacy. Leaders like Mayowa Agbaje-Williams, MPH ’08, PharmD ’14, are catalysts for change. This incredibly driven clinical development professional and her partner, Matt Kehrein, created the UIC Pharmacy Clinical Scientist Group Scholarship Fund as part of their commitment to leveling the playing field concerning racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare. To that end, their scholarship supports UIC Pharmacy’s diverse student body by providing financial resources for students engaged in the college’s Black Pharmacy Student Association (BPhSA).

“As a 2014 alumna of the UIC College of Pharmacy, the MLK Scholarship, offered by the Urban Health Program, was integral to helping my partner and me in

Their generous scholarship will provide additional, much-needed support for outstanding students, like Mayowa, as they become the healthcare leaders of tomorrow. Please join Mayowa and Matt in supporting the next generation of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists.

covering my tuition expenses.” MAYOWA AGBAJE-WILLIAMS, MPH ’08, PHARMD ’14, AND HER PARTNER, MATT KEHREIN.

It only takes a minute to make a gift that lasts a lifetime. GI V ING.PH A R M ACY.U IC .E D U

To discuss a lasting legacy of your own to benefit the next generation of pharmacists and scientists, please get in touch with associate director of development Lexi Betcher at LBetcher@uic.edu.

COLLEGE OF PHARMACY

8 3 3 S . W O O D S T. ( M C 8 74 ) · C H I C A G O , I L 6 0 6 12

The day you proudly graduated from the UIC College of Pharmacy, you pledged to make a difference in the lives of others. We’re calling on you to take a moment to pledge again to support the college and the students whom we serve. Make a gift or consider a multiyear pledge. Your support will secure our continued advancement as an engine of opportunity for future generations of ambitious, hard-working young people. Together, we will ensure that programs and facilities match ambitions, access matches need, and opportunities match dreams. It only takes a minute to make the gift that lasts a lifetime.

giving.pharmacy.uic.edu

The Pharmacist - Spring 2022

Articles inside

Three Reasons Why Recognizing Pharmacists as Providers Can Help Solve Public Health Crisis in the United States

UIC College of Pharmacy to Launch Emergency Medicine PGY2 Residency on Rockford Campus

Ask an Alumnus - Denise Scarpelli

Sources of Inspiration and Motivation