The Pharmacist - The Giving Issue/Winter 2016

WINTER 2016 • Volume 38 • Issue 1

The Pharmacist

THE GIVING ISSUE

A publication of the UIC College of Pharmacy

Giving & Growing

TOGETHER

The college blossoms due to roots in our culture of giving.

NIH Renews Center Funding The UIC Center for Botanical Dietary Supplements receives $9 million to grow their research.

Alumni Profile Craig Kueltzo’s compassion planted the seeds of pharmacy in Tommy Chiampas.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

8

14 Features 8

Giving & Growing Together Early on our college was saved by generous donations from friends and alums.

Today’s donations (whether an estate gift, scholarship or corporate donation) are no less important.

14 Botanical Breakthroughs

The NIH renews funding for the UIC Center for Botanical Dietary Supplements for 5 years.

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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18 EDITORIAL CREDITS Publisher Jerry L. Bauman, PharmD, FCCP, FACC

Dean Editors Chris Gummert Assistant Director of Communications

19 Departments 2

From The Dean

Dean Bauman discusses the history behind the new name of our magazine.

3 Calendar 4

College News

7

Student News

18

White Coat Ceremony

The Class of 2019 took the Oath of the Pharmacist during the annual White Coat Ceremony.

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Alumni Profile

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Alumni News

Christopher J. Shoemaker, MED, MBA, CFRE

Assistant Dean for Advancement & Alumni Affairs Contributing Editors Daniel P. Smith Michael Dhar Photography Barry Donald Dan Pollack Designed by Studio V Design, Inc +++ UIC Pharmacist 833 S. Wood St. (MC 874) Chicago, IL 60612 Phone: (312) 996-7240 Fax: (312) 413-1910 E-mail: pharmacy@uic.edu ©2016. All rights reserved.

Craig Kueltzo’s compassion encouraged a young customer to pursue a career in pharmacy.

21 Obituaries The Pharmacist | 1

FROM THE DEAN

Many Names, One History

BY JERRY BAUMAN

In the vast sea of colleges of pharmacy, it is important to contemplate what distinguishes the UIC College of Pharmacy from the rest. Our vibrant research mission? Yes. Our innovative clinical pharmacy programs? Certainly. Our commitment to diversity in both urban and rural settings? Undoubtedly.

But most remarkable is our history.

We are one of the oldest colleges of pharmacy in the nation. Only a handful of colleges can claim they survived the Civil War as we did. We began as a private college named the Chicago College of Pharmacy in 1859. In 1896 we joined the University of Illinois to become the University of Illinois College of Pharmacy. This important decision required special legislation to allow the University of Illinois (in Champaign County) to acquire property in Chicago (in Cook County). That decision also ushered in the possibility of having a distinct Chicago campus: the University of Illinois at Chicago. Now UIC is a major public research university with

Fresh New Look for The Pharmacist magazine.

UIC has a new logo and branding, what do you think of our new design?

Send comments to pharmacy@uic.edu

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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the College of Pharmacy located in one of the largest medical centers in the world.

In September of 1868, our college published the first issue of a trade journal simply named “The Pharmacist.”

The publication was the third pharmaceutical journal in the entire country.1 The magazine you see before you is named in honor of that historic journal. “The Pharmacist” will replace “The UIC Pharmacist” magazine (designed for our pharmacist alums) and “The Catalyst” (designed for research-oriented alums). There will be three themed publications of “The Pharmacist” per year: the winter “Giving” issue, the spring “Research” issue and the summer “Clinical” issue. There will also be a regular “Annual Report” issued at the beginning of the school year.

Renaming our official publication is a tribute to our legacy – our most distinguishing feature.  Lewis, E.R., Prairie State Pharmacy, 1980, Illinois

1

Pharmacists Association

Our digital edition

www.issuu.com/uicpharmacy UIC Pharmacist would like to hear from you and welcomes your letters: UIC Pharmacist (MC 874) 833 South Wood Street, Room 184KA Chicago, Illinois 60612-7230 E-mail: pharmacy@uic.edu

Letters are edited for length and clarity. All reader correspondence to the magazine and its editorial staff will be treated as assigned for publication unless otherwise specified.

CALENDAR FEB

26

RESEARCH DAY

Seeking alumni judges to judge abstracts from our current students.

For more details contact Martina Vaskova at mvaskova@uic.edu.

MAR

04-07 MAR

05

MAR

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MAR OR APR APR

06

MAY

05

APhA ANNUAL MEETING

American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD.

PARTNERS IN PRACTICE EVENT

Time and location are being determined. For more details contact Jan Engle at jengle@uic.edu.

ANNUAL ARIZONA EVENT

Date to be arranged. We’re heading back to Spring Training! Join fellow alumni for a day at the ball park. Final date will be determined as soon as the Spring Training schedule is released.

SPRING ALUMNI AND STUDENT SOCIAL

Date and location will be determined in late December when the Spring exam schedule is released.

HONORS CONVOCATION

Join us as we celebrate the achievements of our PharmD students at the 64th Annual Honors Convocation. Reception and ceremony will be held at the College of Pharmacy (833 South Wood Street) in Chicago.

COMMENCEMENT

Celebrating the Class of 2016! Commencement will be held at the UIC Forum (725 Roosevelt Road) in Chicago. For details regarding the ceremony, please contact Deb Agard at agard@uic.edu.

MAY

21-25

ISPOR ANNUAL MEETING

The Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomic Research welcomes alumni and friends to its annual dinner in Washington, DC. Tentative date is Monday, May 23.

Final details will be determined in early 2016. 

The Pharmacist | 3

COLLEGE NEWS

PEOPLE

Courtney Krueger and her husband Jim

welcomed Nora Lucille, on August 13. Nora joins big brothers Cade and Nolan.

Karl Larsen was appointed by University of

Illinois President Timothy Killeen to the State Laboratory Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee focuses on policy recommendations and certification requirements for state laboratories. It also reviews aspects of management salaries and certification requirements for forensic laboratories.

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Dan Touchette has been accepted to

participate in the 2015-2016 Academic Research Fellows Program (ARFP) of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (ACCP). The ARFP is a yearlong program designed to expand the leadership capabilities of established faculty research scientists and administrators to cultivate collaborative team research and graduate education across institutions.

Stephanie Crawford has been appointed

a member of the DIA’s (Drug Information Association) Advisory Council for North America (ACNA). The ACNA, one of DIA’s five regional advisory councils, is responsible for providing direction and regional intelligence to the board of directors and to DIA’s global chief executive and Senior Vice President and Managing Director of the Americas region regarding DIA’s strategy in North America.

Todd Lee and Simon Pickard

are investigators on a grant from the CDC received by the State of Illinois. Illinois is one of 16 states to receive funds to execute and evaluate prevention strategies to improve safe prescribing practices and prevent prescription drug overuse, misuse, abuse, and overdose.

Drs. Lee and Pickard’s portion of the grant is $420,000. They will primarily be responsible for evaluating the impact of the program.

Lara Ellinger, PharmD 2010, received

the Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists (ICHP) Shining Star Award during the ICHP Annual meeting in September.

The Pharmacist | 5

PEOPLE

COLLEGE HONORS AND AWARDS

Latha Radhakrishnan, PharmD 1998, was elected to the office of Grand Regent (International President) of Kappa Psi Pharmaceutical Fraternity Inc. at the biennial Kappa Psi International Conference in Denver, Colorado August 4th– 9th. The Illinois Graduate Chapter of Kappa Psi (which is made up of alums of multiple Illinois pharmacy schools, including UIC) was awarded the Graduate Chapter of the Year Award at the same conference.

Young Jeong received her second R01

grant. The current RO1 was awarded for her project titled, “Molecular basis of interindividual variability in CYP2D6-mediated drug metabolism.”

Young Jeong’s article, “Farnesoid X

Receptor Agonist Represses Cytochrome P450 2D6 Expression by Upregulating Small Heterodimer Partner,” in the ASPET journal Drug Metabolism and Disposition was selected to be highlighted on the site’s homepage.

Terry Moore and his UIC collaborator Sekhar

Reddy received $35,000 in new funding from the UIC Chancellor’s Discovery Fund for Multidisciplinary Pilot Research for a project titled “Development of Nrf2 Activators for the Treatment of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis.”

Greg Calip has been selected as a 2015-16

Delegate for the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Pharmaceutical Research and Science (APhA-APRS).

Jen Samp and Simon Pickard

co-authored the First Edition of the International Society of Quality of Life Research Dictionary for Quality of Life and Health Outcomes Measurement.

Multi-Million Dollar Grant Has Pharmacy Ties The University of Illinois at Chicago and Rush Medical Center were both recipients of a 2015 Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP) Awards, $2.5 million and $2.2 million, respectively over 3 years. UIC Clinical Assistant Professor Mike Koronkowski is the co-investigator and consultant to these interprofessional grants.

GWEP aims to improve the quality of healthcare for older Americans by: • Changing clinical training environments into integrated geriatrics and primary care delivery systems.

• Training providers who can assess and address the needs of older adults and their families or caregivers at the individual, community, and population levels.

• Delivering community-based programs that will provide patients, families, and caregivers with the knowledge and skills to improve health outcomes and the quality of care for older adults.

Rosalyn Vellurattil has authored a book titled: Pharmacy

Research: A How-To Guide for Students, Residents, and New Practitioners.

The book, published by the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), provides an introduction to research methods and a foundation on which individual research practices can be built. It includes tools for research training and cultivation, an area emphasized by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, and is designed for students, new graduates, residents, and any practitioners needing basic training in research fundamentals.

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STUDENT NEWS

UIC Pharmacy Shines in AACP Rankings The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) released the National Institutes of Health (NIH) rankings for fiscal year 2014. UIC College of Pharmacy’s standing improved in 3 out of 4 categories over the 2013 numbers.

All Grants $18,446,519 – Ranked #4 (#7 in 2013)

Non-Federal PI Grants $5,491,429 – Ranked #2 (#3 in 2013)

Other Federal $2,220,429 – Ranked #8 (#8 in 2013)

NIH $10,734,661 - Ranked #8 (#9 in 2013)

Myron Laban, a second-year student, won Red Bull’s “Art of

the Can” contest with his entry titled “Lethargy.” It is a mixed media piece incorporating sculpture, painting and, of course, Red Bull cans.

“Lethargy” is currently on display in Philadelphia.

Maryam Elfeki, a third year student in Pharmacognosy, One of only 7 health systems in the country

Specialty Pharmacy Services Receives Full Accreditation The UIC Wood Street Pharmacy Specialty Pharmacy Services received full accreditation from the Utilization Review Accreditation Commission (URAC). UIC is only the 7th health system in the country to achieve this rating.

The final accreditation summary report shows that our specialty service received a score of 100%. 

from Brian Murphy’s Lab received an American Society of Pharmacognosy (ASP) Student Travel Award. Maryam traveled to the ASP Annual Conference in Colorado to present her poster entitled: “Prospecting Great Lakes Bacteria For Druglead Discovery With High-Throughput Microbiome Screening.”

Mary Choules, a PharmD/PhD

student from Guido Pauli’s Lab, received the Lynn Brady Student Travel award.

Mary traveled to the American Society of Pharmacognosy Annual Conference in Colorado on July 25th-29th to present her research in a talk entitled: “A Rufomycin Analogue is an Anti-tuberculosis Drug Lead Targeting CLPC1 with No Cross Resistance to Eumicin.”

Mary Tang, an advisee of

Dr. Richard Gemeinhart, is one of six recipients of the prestigious Controlled Release Society (CRS) Nicholas A. Peppas Travel Award. The award pays the travel expenses of young scientists traveling to the 2015 CRS Annual Meeting & Exposition, Edinburgh, Scotland. This year’s expo was held on July 26th -29th. 

The Pharmacist | 7

giving & growing

together A CULTURE OF PHILANTHROPY.

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

It’s a trite thing to say, but in our case it happens to be true: the UIC College of Pharmacy would not exist if not for the generous spirit of its friends and alums. Literally.

I

n the fall of 1871 The Chicago College of Pharmacy (the precursor to the UIC College of Pharmacy) was still a fledgling enterprise. Having graduated its first class just a decade ago, the faculty and staff were finally settling into their first “permanent” address.

Gone were the days of borrowing lecture spaces from friends and associates. After closing down during the Civil War, the doors were once again open, class sizes were increasing and the school was being recognized for the quality of their graduates.

But on October 8th all that changed.

Over the course of three days the pharmacy school, and roughly 3 square miles of the city, were destroyed by The Great Chicago Fire.

Everything was gone. The ashes of the college were scattered on the breeze and after 10 years of scrambling for class space, the college was, once again, officially homeless.

But Corresponding College Secretary Albert Ebert was undaunted. He rallied support from alums and colleagues around the world and the response was overwhelming. Their generosity rebuilt the college, restocked the libraries and laboratories and began a culture of giving at the college that continues to this day. There is no shortage of amazing alums and donors who have helped this college grow out of the ashes of 1871. From an inaugural class of 2 people to a state-of-the-art educational facility with 2 campuses and thousands of influential graduates, our expansion has been fueled every step of the way by donors of all kinds.

In this issue we’ve compiled a small sampling of some of their stories as a way to say, “Thank you.”

The Pharmacist | 9

FINANCIALLY STRUGGLING STUDENTS GET HELPING HAND

albert

RORY

‘74 DONATES SCHOLARSHIP FOR STRUGGLING STUDENTS

R

ory Albert (BS 1974) hopes the scholarship he’s established will help students facing financial hardships launch pharmacy careers — just like he did.

The “Judy and Rory Albert Scholarship,” named for Rory and his wife, first went to a UIC Pharmacy student this year. The scholarship’s endowment is in the amount of $75,000, and the scholarship “is for a student that is in financial need,” Rory said. The winner should also support the recognition of Israel as a state, a cause that Rory, a board member of the Jewish National Fund, feels strongly about, he said.

Rory wanted to help students facing financial difficulties because he knows those challenges well, he said.

“I was that student back when I went to school,” he said. “This could be a chance for someone like me to better themselves with education.”

In addition to the scholarship fund, Rory donated $75,000 for a new compounding lab at UIC. Now retired, Rory made his career in the field of compounding, co-founding the Diamondback Drugs compounding company in Scottsdale, Arizona. He said the compounding facilities at UIC deserved an upgrade.

“I thought if we could build a better lab for students, maybe they would choose that path to go down in their career,” he said.

RORY ALBERT AND HIS WIFE, JUDY.

At UIC, Rory also benefited from a mentorship with fellow alum Boris Evans (BS 1954). In a time before proper pharmacy internships, Rory learned the trade as an apprentice with Boris. “I learned from him how to buy, how to run a retail store,” Rory said. “He was a really good teacher.”

In general, Rory said he wanted his gifts to help the school he credits with setting him on a successful career path.

“ I felt I had a very good education given to me, and I really wanted to give back.”

RORY ALBERT

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DAVE

hicks

RURAL ‘76 PHARMACY SCHOLARSHIP ESTABLISHES

SCHOLARSHIP HELPS SMALL TOWN PHARMACY STUDENTS

F

uture Illinois pharmacists from small towns could get a hand up at UIC thanks to1976 alum Dave Hicks.

Dave’s estate will fund a scholarship at the Rockford campus, specifically for rural students who intend to return to their small towns. The scholarship will be funded by an endowment currently estimated at $50,000.

Dave wanted to benefit the Rockford campus because he grew up in nearby Belvidere, Boone County. Raised on a 160-acre corn and livestock farm, Dave knows the importance of pharmacies in rural communities.

“I very much identify with the rural environment,” he said.

“There are a number of small towns across northern Illinois that still need pharmacies. And pharmacies are really a bedrock of small communities… So I wanted to do something to help to support that.”

In fact, Dave’s pharmacist as a kid — Al Anderson at Rexall Drug — helped steer him toward a pharmacy career.

“He was my original role model in terms of getting into pharmacy,” Dave said. “I saw that it was a good career and mixed my interest in chemistry with an altruistic profession.”

Among the many accomplishments in his career, Dave served as vice president and chief pharmacy officer at University of Chicago, earning American Society of Hospital Pharmacy Best Practice Awards in 2011 and 2012, and turning the medical school into one of UIC Pharmacy’s top clinical rotation sites. Last year, the UIC Pharmacy Alumni Association recognized Dave with the Jesse Stewart Service Award.

Now retired, Dave also served on UIC’s national advisory board, invited by fellow ‘76 alum Jerry Bauman, UIC Pharmacy’s current dean. Dave credits UIC for much of his success.

DAVE HICKS SPEAKS AT THE 2014 ALUMNI REUNION.

“ I wanted to give back, and give forward, for the great career I had.

This college was instrumental in my career.”

DAVE HICKS

The Pharmacist | 11

A WINNING

alliance

BY DANIEL P. SMITH

“As a college, we have to look for these types of public-private partnerships and the relationship we’ve enjoyed with Shimadzu is a prototype of what the College of Pharmacy would like to do moving forward with industry.”

JERRY BAUMAN, Dean, College of Pharmacy

RICHARD VAN BREEMEN a nationally renowned mass

spectrometrist now in his 21st year at UIC.

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THE FIRE IN 2008 GUTTED SEVERAL LAB SPACES, INCLUDING DR. VAN BREEMEN’S.

THE CHICAGO MASS SPECTROMETRY LAB’S COLLABORATION WITH SHIMADZU SPOTLIGHTS THE POTENTIAL SYNERGIES OF PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS Channeling the spirit of 19th century Chicagoans who rebuilt the city after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, UIC medicinal chemistry professor Richard van Breemen led the reconstruction of his Chicago Mass Spectrometry Lab following the Great Pharmacy Fire of 2008 and did so with a helping hand from Shimadzu Scientific Instruments.

the equipment at no cost, an annual savings of about $80,000 to the college.

When flames and smoke filled the College of Pharmacy’s six-story building on the morning of Jan. 19, 2008, the Chicago Mass Spectrometry Lab, formally titled the Mass Spectrometry, Metabolomics & Proteomics Facility (MMPF) by the UIC Research Resources Center, encountered substantial damage. All 14 of the lab’s mass spectrometers, instruments that measure the masses and relative concentrations of atoms and molecules, incurred external and internal damage.

“Shimadzu’s generosity has enabled our facility to have a much greater impact on research and education,” van Breemen says.

“It was a disheartening scene,” says van Breemen, a nationally renowned mass spectrometrist now in his 21st year at UIC.

Treasured ally In the months prior to the fire, van Breemen had been working with Shimadzu to purchase a high-resolution mass spectrometer. After landing a $300,000 National Institutes of Health grant in 2007 to purchase the equipment, Shimadzu officials encouraged van Breemen to write an additional proposal to secure even better equipment – a $450,000 high-performance model – through the firm’s academic instrument grant program.

The day the Chicago Mass Spectrometry Lab reopened in April 2008, Shimadzu delivered the high-performance model. Soon after, Shimadzu also replaced all chromatography equipment within the College of Pharmacy as well.

“Shimadzu really came in with a helpful spirit that allowed us to get up and running quickly,” van Breemen says.

In the years since, Shimadzu has continued to be a treasured ally.

The result, van Breemen says, is a mass spectrometry lab “as good or better than any academic lab in the United States” and well over $1.5 million in in-kind equipment donations and service contracts provided by Shimadzu.

The Chicago Mass Spectrometry Lab’s equipment supports a broad variety of research, including clinical trials, drug discovery and drug metabolism, and is used by researchers and students from the Colleges of Pharmacy, Medicine, Dentistry and the School of Public Health at UIC, as well as scientists from other Chicago-area institutions such as Northwestern and Loyola.

Ripple effect “There’s a ripple effect here that allows so many others to use mass spectrometry in their own research,” says van Breemen, who has trained more than 40 PhDs and 20 post-docs in mass spectrometry and whose lab publishes 7-8 papers each year using the Shimadzu equipment.

Partnerships between industry and academia are becoming increasingly more important in the modern age, particularly amid declining state support, College of Pharmacy Dean Jerry Bauman says.

“It makes sense given that we have complementary skill sets and missions with many private companies,” Bauman says. “We’re a research-intensive College in which researchers have the freedom to pursue discovery, while private enterprises are in the business of commercialization.

There’s a lot we both bring to the table.”

While public-private partnerships have not always been a priority in academia, Bauman is hopeful that the ties the College has established with Shimadzu usher in a new era of collaboration. 

The 140-year-old Japanese firm has loaned van Breemen’s lab three additional mass spectrometers, including its latest triple quadrupole model. The company also services

The Pharmacist | 13

BOTANICAL BRE

BY DANIEL P. SMITH

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EAKTHR UGHS BOLSTERED BY A THIRD GRANT RENEWAL, THE UIC/ NIH CENTER FOR BOTANICAL DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS RESEARCH CONTINUES ITS MARCH EXPLORING THE SAFETY AND EFFICACY OF BOTANICAL SUPPLEMENTS Hops aren’t only for beer, and licorice isn’t only for the movie theatre, a reality the UIC Center for Botanical Dietary Supplements knows well.

Headquartered in UIC’s College of Pharmacy, the center has been studying botanical supplements such as hops and licorice since its founding in 1999, an adventure that center director Richard van Breemen and his colleagues will now continue for another five years with the support of federal funding.

Productivity and momentum In September, the UIC-based center received a five-year, $9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) to continue its pioneering research into the safety and efficacy of botanical dietary supplements for women’s health.

UIC’s botanical center was one of only three Botanical Research Centers to receive funding in 2015 and is the nation’s only center to be continuously funded since the NIH began issuing these grants in 1999.

“It’s a tremendous honor to be renewed once again,” says van Breemen, a College of Pharmacy faculty member since 1994 and the center’s director since 2010. “It underscores our center’s productivity and the momentum we’ve generated over the last 16 years.”

The Pharmacist | 15

With the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act, Congress establishes a new regulatory category for botanical dietary supplements and creates the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS).

1994

Under the leadership of Norman Farnsworth, UIC earns one of the first two NIH Botanical Center grants.

1994 1999

The Women’s Health Initiative ends a clinical trial of hormone therapy for menopausal women over safety concerns, which accelerates interest in botanical dietary supplements as an alternative to conventional hormone therapy.

1994 2002

UIC’s Botanical Center publishes its first clinical trial, a study of red clover safety and pharmacokinetics.

1994 2004

Norman Farnsworth

Richard van Breemen The NIH renews funding for UIC’s Botanical Center.

2005 1994

The UIC Botanical Center publishes its 100th peer-reviewed scientific manuscript.

1994 2007

UIC publishes clinical safety and efficacy studies of black cohosh and red clover.

1994 2009

UIC’s Botanical Center captures its second NIH renewal. With Norman Farnsworth’s retirement, Richard van Breemen becomes the center’s director and Guido Pauli its co-director. Farnsworth passes away the following year at the age of 81.

1994 2010

UIC publishes results of a clinical safety and pharmacokinetic study of hops in women.

1994 2014

The NIH renews funding for UIC’s Botanical Center a third time and the center publishes its 200 peer-reviewed scientific manuscript.

1994 2015

Guido Pauli

Judy Bolton

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Prolific and proficient When the U.S. government unveiled the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act in 1994, it defined botanicals as a special category, neither food nor drug, and sparked the rapid growth of the botanical supplements industry, now a mainstream field estimated to exceed $9 billion in annual sales.

Congress later directed the NIH to address the safety and efficacy of botanical supplements, which prompted the ODS to issue a call for grant proposals. Led by veteran professor Norman Farnsworth, who served some 30 years as director of the Program for Collaborative Research in the Pharmaceutical Sciences, UIC jumped at the opportunity to submit.

“He was waiting his entire professional career for something like this to happen,” van Breemen says of Farnsworth.

In 1999, UIC joined UCLA in landing the program’s first two Botanical Center grants, charged to investigate the merits and safety of botanical supplements at a perplexing time.

“It was very much a ‘consumer beware’ culture with respect to botanical supplements in 1999,” says van Breemen, who served as the center’s initial co-director until Farnsworth’s 2010 retirement.

The UIC center’s efforts, singularly focused on women, became even more critical after the 11-year Women’s Health Initiative ceased a clinical trial of hormone therapy for menopausal women in 2002 due to rising safety concerns around issues such as heart disease, cancer and dementia. That much-publicized move further accelerated public interest in dietary supplements as a compelling alternative to conventional hormone therapy.

In 2004, the center published results of its clinical trial concerning the safety of red clover, the first of five clinical trials the center has completed over the last 16 years, and just one of the more than 200 peer-reviewed papers the center has published since its founding. The center’s research has since weaved into FDA guidelines around botanical authentication as well as sound manufacturing practices, two significant consumer protection developments.

Innovative research In examining the UIC center’s most recent renewal proposal, a peer-reviewed panel of several dozen experts lauded UIC’s

“ WE’RE NOT REGULATORS OR INDUSTRY, BUT SCIENTISTS OUT FOR THE TRUTH.”

GUIDO PAULI 16-year track record and expressed confidence in the center’s ability to deliver more innovative research.

“After 16 years, there’s some fear you could be out of ideas, but the panel believed we could be even stronger moving forward,” says Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy professor Guido Pauli, who joins van Breemen and Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy head Judy Bolton in spearheading this funding cycle’s three studies.

Pauli’s project focuses on new methodology and approaches for botanical standardization, which seeks to provide new conceptual insights into how botanical dietary supplements work and how they can be assessed for human use.

Bolton’s research, meanwhile, evaluates botanicals for biological activity, including estrogenic, chemopreventive, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, to assess if women taking botanical supplements for menopausal symptoms might see additional health benefits.

And finally, van Breemen leads a third project examining interactions between prescription drugs and three popular supplements – hops, red clover and licorice.

Collaborative environment It’s a synergistic and collaborative environment in which the insights produced by one group influence the others.

“We all talk to one another and our teams talk to one another on a daily basis so our research is facilitated,” says Pauli, the center’s co-director since 2010. “We’re not regulators or industry, but scientists out for the truth.”

With an estimated one in five U.S. adults using botanical supplements and other non-vitamin, non-mineral dietary supplements, van Breemen hopes the center’s work continues to inform the U.S. marketplace.

“People have been taking the botanical supplements since the dawn of time and they’re going to continue to take them,” van Breemen says. “We just want products as safe and effective as possible and that’s been our mission from the very beginning.”  The Pharmacist | 17

WHITE COAT

Change Your Coat, Change Your Life The annual White Coat Ceremony, sponsored by Jewel-Osco, was held on August 20th on the Chicago and Rockford campuses. Nearly 200 new pharmacy students received their coats that evening before reciting the Oath of the Pharmacist, two important first steps on the road to a pharmacy degree.

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Earns Independent Pharmacy Award

ALUMNI PROFILE

Craig Kueltzo (‘68)

Independent Pharmacy Award Sparks Childhood Memories For 41 years, Craig Kueltzo (BS 1968) has met with, counseled and gotten to know countless patients at his shop, Lombard Pharmacy, in Lombard, Illinois. Craig’s commitment to his community earned his store this year’s Most Valuable Pharmacy Award from the Independent Pharmacy Cooperative.

“ I consider the store a devoted member of the community. The community is invested in us, and we’re invested in the community.”

“It’s great to be recognized by your peers as standing above the rest,” Craig said of the award, which he accepted at a ceremony this summer in San Diego. “It’s almost as good as one of my customers coming in and saying, ‘Thanks for being here.’”

CRAIG KUELTZO (BS 1968)

Craig credits the award to the high standards of patient care both he and his staff practice. “We consider all of our clients our patients, not customers. And their health and pharmaceutical care are primary, even if at times we actually fill their prescriptions at a loss.”

The announcement of Craig’s award brought back fond memories for one of those patients: Tommy Chiampas, a 2011 UIC Pharmacy grad and current clinical pharmacist at the university. As a kid, Tommy frequented Lombard Pharmacy due to recurrent ear infections — or, as he put it as a kid, “to get my bubblegum.” The kindness Craig showed him helped inspire his own decision to go into pharmacy.

Though it’s grown in size from 500 to 3,100 square feet, Lombard Pharmacy has maintained the same location since opening in 1974.

500 to 3,100 square feet

“I always looked up to him, and I thought it was a really cool profession, what he was doing,” Tommy said. “He was extremely patient, very welcoming and comforting…The empathy he showed was something I learned when I was young, but didn’t really realize that I was learning it.”

TOMMY CHIAMPAS

The Pharmacist | 19

ALUMNI NEWS

 Babies  Jessica (Katz) Wills, PharmD 2014, husband Matt and big sister Emily welcomed their newest addition, Raymond Malone on July 16th. With this new addition, this makes grandchild number eight for faculty member Norm and Patricia Katz, BS 1981.

Renee Petzel Gimbar, PharmD 2004, and her husband Matt welcomed their second son Emmitt William on August 3rd.

Emmitt joins big brother Graeme.

Nicole (Charlebois) Woods, PharmD 2004, sent a photo of Xavier Jacob who was born on July 29th, 2014.

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 Desi Kotis, BS 1983, PharmD 1994, received the President’s Award during the ICHP Annual Meeting in September.  Katie (McCool) Nichols, PharmD 2012, received her BCACP Certification: Board Certified Ambulatory Care Pharmacist.

 Mike Rajski, BS 1976, PharmD 1991, received the Pharmacist of The Year Award during the ICHP Annual Meeting in September.  Carrie (Quigley) Sincak, PharmD 2000, was awarded the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Academic Leadership Fellow during the AACP Annual Meeting on July 11th. Carrie also received the Amy Lodolce Mentor Award at the ICHP Annual Meeting in September.

Paul Pluta, BS 1970, PhD 1976, became a grandfather for the second time on April 7th. Faith joins big brother Paul (age 5).

Ann Kuchta, BS 1977, PharmD 1997, became a grandmother for the second time. Jack Edward Szczepaniak was born on June 23rd. (NO PHOTO)

JUL

Awards

 Kristen (Paciga) Goliak, PharmD 1998, was awarded the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Academic Leadership Fellow during the AACP Annual Meeting on July 11th.

Bruce, BS 1974, and Linda Grider, BS 1975, welcomed their first grandchild, Henry Robert on August 7th.

11

Khyati Patel, PharmD 2011, married Kunal Kotak.

AUG

08

Toni Shaw, PharmD 2004, married John Rose in Key West, Florida.

JUN

13 Seema Patel, PharmD 2012 married Meet Patel.

(NO PHOTO)

20 | pharmalumni.uic.edu

WINTER 2016

OBITUARIES John William “Bill” Butler, BS 1943, passed away on July 14th, 2015. He was born on October 11th, 1920 in Beloit, Wisconsin. John used his pharmacy degree in the 32nd Army Field Hospital during World War 2. After the war John was active in the Illinois National Guard in addition to running a neighborhood pharmacy in Chicago.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 62 years, Phyllis (Rzepecki) Butler.

Mary Ann (Zugich) Maloney, BS 1941, passed away on June 23rd, 2015. She was born November 27th, 1919 in DuPue, Illinois. Mary was a registered pharmacist and was married to John E. Maloney, M.D. for 59 years before he passed away.

Ed Raftery, BS 1955, passed away on July 22nd, 2015.

Ed was born July 17th, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. Upon graduation from the College of Pharmacy he served in the Navy at Glenview Naval Air Station. Ed and his wife Gerri owned drug stores throughout the Chicagoland area for many years with their last being Gerri’s Mayfair Drugs in Chicago. Ed was preceded in death by Gerri.

Thomas Welch, BS 1959, PhD 1963, passed away on July 25th, 2015 at the age of 82. Thomas entered the Navy in 1952 and served in the Korean War on the USS Yancey. Welch became a Chicago Police Officer before earning his PhD in pharmacy. Welch joined Miles Laboratories in Bedford Park, Illinois, and was a key leader in the development of many well-loved products including Flintstones Vitamins. Tom is survived by Nancy, his wife of 55 years.

Donald R. Gronewold, BS 1955, passed away on August 25th, 2015. Don was born on August 7th, 1932 in Trivoli, Illinois. Upon graduation Don served in the Army before returning to Washington, Illinois to open Don’s Pharmacy on the Square. Don ran the pharmacy for 42 years. He was also an active member of the Kappa Psi Pharmaceutical Fraternity, the Central Illinois Pharmacists Association, National Community Phramacists Association and the Illinois Pharmacists Association. He served as president of the Illinois Pharmacists Association for a time, as well as president of the Central Illinois Pharmacists Association. In 1970 Don received the Bowl of Hygeia Award, which recognizes pharmacists who possess outstanding records of civic leadership in their communities. Don is survived by Shirley, his wife of 55 years.

Karen A. (Alison) Lowder, BS 1973, PhD 1990, passed away on June 11th, 2015 from metastatic breast cancer.

Karen met and married Barry Lowder in 1975 while working as a pharmacist at Burnham Hospital in Champaign, Illinois. The two were married until Barry passed in 2011.

Jean A. Tominov, PharmD 1990, passed away on May 26th, 2015. She was born on July 9th, 1955 in Chicago.

Upon graduation Jean started a career as a pharmacist at Express Scripts. Jean is survived by her husband George Althouse.

Walter M. Staron, Jr., PharmD 1992, passed away on September 11th, 2015. He was born on July 23rd, 1967.

He is survived by his wife Anita.

The Pharmacist | 21

UIC College of Pharmacy (MC 874) 833 South Wood Street Chicago, Illnois 60612