FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017
Contact:  Leah C. Payne, Director of Public Affairs, Schools of Medicine and Pharmacy, 304-691-1713

Schools of medicine and pharmacy team with Cabell Huntington Hospital on pilot grants program

HUNTINGTON, W.Va.—Pilot research grants totaling $200,000 have been awarded to four health sciences research teams at Marshall University, with each team comprised of one faculty member from the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and one faculty member from the Marshall University School of Pharmacy.   

The Health Collaborative Grants program was established to promote joint biomedical research projects between faculty researchers at the university’s medical and pharmacy schools by providing seed money to jump-start research initiatives, with the anticipation that these projects will lead to larger cooperative research efforts.

The initiative, supported by Cabell Huntington Hospital, Marshall Health and the university’s academic units, was launched earlier this year.

“Researchers at the school of medicine and the school of pharmacy bring different talents to understanding diseases and potential treatments,” said Gary Rankin, Ph.D., vice dean for basic sciences at the school of medicine. “By providing a mechanism for these investigators to work together on health-related problems, we are synergizing their ability to advance our understanding of disease processes that could lead to new therapies.”

Cabell Huntington Hospital serves as a key hospital partner for both schools.

“Research is an important component to continually provide the best treatment options for our patients,” said Kevin Fowler, president and CEO of Cabell Huntington Hospital. “This partnership further enhances our focus to provide high quality health care and better patient outcomes.”

“The schools of pharmacy and medicine along with Cabell Huntington Hospital are working as a true team to combat opiate addiction, provide genuine team-based care to our patients and conducting important research like the projects announced today,” said Brian Gallagher, R.Ph., J.D., interim dean of the school of pharmacy. “This is another fine example of the cooperative spirit within the health care community at Marshall University and in our region.”

The following research teams have been funded at $50,000 per project for the 2018 calendar year:

• Monica Valentovic, Ph.D. (School of Medicine) and Timothy Long, Ph.D. (School of Pharmacy):  “Mechanistic studies of disulfiram as an anti-MRSA drug”
• Brandon Henderson, Ph.D. (School of Medicine) and V. Blair Journigan, Ph.D. (School of Pharmacy):  “Discovery and characterization of nicotinic receptor antagonists for nicotine cessation”
• Wei Li, M.D., Ph.D. (School of Medicine) and Jinsong Hao, Ph.D. (School of Pharmacy):  “Evaluation of transdermal delivery of thymidine phosphorylase inhibitors on inhibition of thrombosis”
• Piyali Dasgupta, Ph.D. (School of Medicine) and Arm Ruhul Amin, Ph.D. (School of Pharmacy):  “Chemoprevention of lung cancer using combination of EGCG and Luteolin”

 Research projects were chosen in early December with a start date of Jan. 1, 2018.

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Date Posted: Wednesday, December 20, 2017