News and Events
2008 News Archive
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URI pharmacy, nursing students join Brown medical students to improve care of asthma patients
Media Contact: Dave Lavallee, 401-874-5862
KINGSTON, R.I.— December 3, 2008 –- If you hadn’t noticed the white lab coats and the identification badges, you might have thought you were at a giant game show.
Hosts were equipped with microphones, and they spun a large wheel to determine which group would answer questions from a variety of case studies. When brave participants volunteered to respond on the spot for their groups, there were smiles and laughter among the crowd.
The good humor and collaborative tone of the exercise at Brown University’s Andrews Hall made it that much easier for University of Rhode Island pharmacy and nursing students and students of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University to test their ability to respond in a matter of minutes to issues related to asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is frequently caused by smoking and other environmental triggers. The primary goal of the required exercise was to foster inter-professional collaboration.
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URI student unlocking secrets of Jamun berry to treat cancer
Media Contact: Dave Lavallee, 401-874-5862
KINGSTON, R.I.--December 1, 2008 -- A University of Rhode Island undergraduate majoring in chemistry hopes to unveil the secrets of the garden in her search for natural treatments for such killers as breast cancer.
Caroline Killian worked this summer in a laboratory mashing up berries and doing extensive tests to find the degree of anti-cancer activity that the Eugenia jambolana berry produced. Also known as the Jamun, the berry is a vibrant purple color, native to India, and found in the United States in Hawaii, Florida and Texas. It is traditionally used as a pre-insulin treatment for diabetes but Killian dared to question what kind of healing power it has against cancer?
Her work as a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow continues with URI Pharmacy Professor Navindra Seeram. Killian and Seeram have been examining the anti-cancer properties of the Jamun berry.
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Pharmacy
professor is berry, berry excited about
medicinal plant research at URI
Media Contact: Dave Lavallee, 401-874-5862
Playing role in returning College of
Pharmacy to prominence as plant natural
products research center
KINGSTON, R.I. – September 25, 2008 – He’s
been here less than a year, but Navindra
Seeram is already putting the University of
Rhode Island’s College of Pharmacy back in
the spotlight for its research on plants,
including the health benefits of medicinal
foods such as fruits and vegetables.
The assistant professor of pharmacy has been
recently selected the editor of the Clinical
Pharmacognosy Series, a new CRC Press
(Taylor and Francis) book series that will
delve into uses and benefits of natural
products in clinical pharmacy practice.
“There is much need for a book series
targeting the clinical study of natural
products, and I started working with the
publishers on this project about four years
ago”.
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Dr. Navindra Seeram
featured on
Health Check 10
Part 1 - November 18
Part 2 - November 19
Johnston Resident Honored by URI College of
Pharmacy
Media Contact: Dave Lavallee, 401-874-5862
KINGSTON,
R.I – June 10, 2008 – The University of
Rhode Island’s College of Pharmacy has
honored alumnus Robert Tortolani with the
Introductory Pharmacy Practice “Preceptor of
the Year” award.
Preceptors oversee pharmacy students’
clinical experiences and serve as mentors.
The students nominate candidates for the
awards.
Tortolani graduated from URI with a
bachelor’s degree in pharmacy in 1979 and
has maintained a close relationship with the
University since then. He began his work as
a preceptor in 1983 and has continued to
mentor students for 25 years.
“I love to teach new pharmacists,” the
Johnston resident said. “It’s so rewarding.
I always tell them, ‘If you learn your
pharmacy skills in school, I will teach you
the business in the business world.’”
Tortolani was the owner of Golini Drug in
Cranston for 17 years and currently works at
Walgreen’s in Johnston, where he trains both
Walgreen’s interns and URI students.
“You have to be a people person to work
retail and the preceptor program offers
students critical exposure, which gives them
an idea of which avenue of pharmacy they
want to follow,” Tortolani said.
A URI student who worked with Tortolani
admired the dedicated mentor’s patience and
service skills and said, “I hope one day to
be as knowledgeable and as loyal to patients
as he was during my internship.”
Tortolani is also an active member of the
field, having once served as president of
the Rhode Island Pharmacists Association and
presently serving as president of the Rhode
Island Pharmacy Foundation. Yet he commented
that receiving this award is one of the
“highlights of my career.”
Pictured above
LOCAL PHARMACIST RECOGNIZED: Honoree Robert
Tortolani, center, stands alongside Brett
Feret, left, clinical associate professor of
pharmacy practice and Ronald P. Jordan, dean
of the College of Pharmacy, after being
presented with the “Preceptor of the Year”
award. URI Department of Communications and
Marketing photo by Dave Lavallee.
URI’s
College of Pharmacy bolsters natural products chemistry
work
Discovering drugs from natural sources part of College’s
50-year history
KINGSTON, R.I. – February 25, 2008 – After it
opened its doors in 1957, the University of Rhode
Island’s College of Pharmacy quickly became known for
its medicinal plant research.
Fifty years later, the College is strengthening its work in pharmacognosy, a branch of pharmacy dealing with medicinal substances from natural sources, especially plants.
To that end, it has added two new faculty members, one of whom will conduct research on higher plants, including berry fruits, and a second whose research interest is genomics, including interpretation of DNA sequences of microbes to identify or modify compounds that are useful medicinally.
“We now have a complementary, three-pronged approach to natural products research—medicinal plants, marine microbes and genetics,” said Pharmacy Professor David Rowley, whose research focuses on marine microbes.
“Our renewed focus on natural products and our leadership in that area is a return to the roots of the College,” said Ron Jordan, the interim dean of the college.
URI’s natural products research began in an era when natural healing treatments and interest in the healing power of fruits and vegetables were almost unheard of in the world of health care. It started with the arrival of Heber Youngken Jr., the College’s first dean in 1957. In 1966, he joined with John Knauss, the first dean of the Graduate School of Oceanography, to make a “drugs from the sea program” a key part of the new Sea Grant program. The pharmacy college hired Yuzuru Shimizu, one of the first professors hired under the Sea Grant program. By the time of his retirement this year, Shimizu had established himself and the University as international leaders in marine natural products research.
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URI
pharmacy professor hunting killer diseases with novel
research
South Kingstown resident doing nationally recognized HIV, cancer studies
KINGSTON, R.I. –
January 23, 2008 – A University of Rhode Island
pharmacy professor is developing compounds that could
play a major role in the fight against certain cancers,
discovering novel compounds to fight the virus that
causes AIDS and finalizing development of a cream that
could be used by women during intercourse to prevent
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) transmission.
Keykavous Parang, an associate professor of biomedical
and pharmaceutical sciences in the College of Pharmacy,
has been awarded more than $1.2 million during the last
year for his promising cell- and chemistry-based
research on two of the world’s major killers---cancer
and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
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New study
makes strong case for link between childhood lead
exposure, Alzheimer’s disease
URI Pharmacy professor discovers enhanced Alzheimer’s plaques in monkey tissue
KINGSTON,
R.I. – January 9, 2008 – A University of Rhode
Island pharmacy professor has found for the first time
evidence of Alzheimer’s-like disease in monkeys that
were exposed to lead as infants.
Nasser Zawia, a URI professor of biomedical sciences at
the College of Pharmacy led the three-year study, which
involved four institutions. The findings were published
in January’s issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
“This is the first evidence of promotion of Alzheimer’s disease-like pathology in a primate by an environmental agent,” Zawia said. “It is relevant because monkeys have identical genes to humans.”
In a study begun in 1980, a group of monkeys was given infant formula with low levels of lead for 400 days. A control group was given formula with no lead. No health problems were found in any of the monkeys during the 23-year study. The low level of lead given to one group of monkeys was designed to mimic what children would be exposed to in their environment. By the time of Zawia’s study, there were no detectable levels of lead in the monkey tissue from the group exposed to the toxin.
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