UB faculty receive funding to advance drug safety for elderly and improve treatments for COPD, dialysis

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Four faculty in the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences received new grants and awards to improve medication management for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), develop novel tools for dialysis treatment and promote drug safety among the elderly.

David Jacobs, PharmD, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice, received the Buffalo Translational Consortium (BTC) Mentored Career Development Award to improve assessment tools for COPD medication management.

The BTC Mentored Career Development Award provides junior health sciences faculty with research training and mentoring to better develop new treatments for diseases affecting communities.

Jacobs will evaluate disease-specific health status assessment tools and physiological measurements to more accurately assess patient response to a new inhaled COPD medication.

The BTC is a regional collaboration between UB, Kaleida Health, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Erie County Medical Center and the Buffalo VA Medical Center. The award is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health.

Calvin Meaney, PharmD, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice, received the 2018 New Investigator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP).

The AACP, a national organization dedicated to advancing pharmacy education, research and practice, provides the award to early-career pharmacy faculty as startup funding for research.

The New Investigator Award will support Meaney’s investigation of a novel tool to create personalized red blood cells for patients undergoing kidney dialysis treatment.

Robert Wahler, PharmD, and Scott Monte, PharmD, clinical assistant professors in the Department of Pharmacy Practice, are co-investigators on a research team awarded an Innovative Micro-Programs Accelerating Collaboration in Themes (IMPACT) grant from the UB Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development.

The IMPACT award supports preliminary research that fosters unique collaborations across disciplines. The research, led by Ranjit Singh, MB BChir, associate professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Family Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, will unite faculty from the Jacobs School, School Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and UB School of Law.

The researchers will test integrating pharmacist consultation into primary care and implementing electronic system alerts to help de-prescribe harmful medications from frail elders, among whom inappropriate use occurs at high rates.

“The research awards Drs. Jacobs, Meaney, Monte and Wahler have received, both here at UB and nationally, are the culmination of years of hard work and dedication to advancing health care.  We are very proud of their accomplishments and are fortunate to have them on the faculty of our school,” said William Prescott Jr., PharmD, clinical associate professor and interim chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice.

For more than 130 years, the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences has continually been a leader in the education of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists, renowned for innovation in clinical practice and research. The school is accredited by the American Council of Pharmaceutical Education (ACPE) and is the No. 1 ranked school of pharmacy in New York State and No. 22 in the United States by U.S. News & World Report.