SoPPS Research Overview - University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

SoPPS Research Overview

Read below to learn more about recent news-making research developments in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science:

Pharmacoeconomics and Diabetes Care

A study on diabetic patients by the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences identified cost savings with improvements in a key indicator of glucose control in diabetes patients, the hemoglobin A1C measurement. The A1C provides a three-month average of the amount of excess glucose in the blood. Higher A1Cs indicate that a patient is at higher risk for developing long-term complications associated with diabetes, such as kidney disease or vision problems. Results show that enhancing the patient's access to care through collaborative physician-pharmacist relationships can yield lower blood glucose levels, improve the overall metabolic profile and reduce costs to the payers.

International AIDS Program

New funding for an innovative University at Buffalo program that trains Zimbabwe's clinician scientists and translational pharmacologists will bring additional health care professionals and researchers to Buffalo to be trained to fight the war on AIDS in Zimbabwe.

UB's HIV Clinical Pharmacology Research Program in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and its program with the University of Zimbabwe has received a $1.5 million National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center grant.

MS Study

Neurologists at the University at Buffalo are beginning a research study that could overturn the prevailing wisdom on the cause of multiple sclerosis (MS). The researchers will test the possibility that the symptoms of MS result from narrowing of the primary veins outside the skull, a condition called "chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency," or CCSVI.

Murali Ramanathan, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, will analyze blood samples for proteins and soluble factors associated with central nervous system injury. He also will be looking for other factors of interest in MS research, such as vitamin D metabolites and cigarette smoking, which have been linked to increased risk for developing MS as well as MS disease progression.

Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics

The University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is the birthplace of the fields of research devoted to Pharmacokinetics, what the body does to a drug and Pharmacodynamics, what the drug does to the body. These foundational principles were developed at UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the school continues to be the international leader in the seminal and guiding principles of PK/PD.

William Jusko, PhD, Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, a world leader in PK/PD, and the most cited researcher within the American Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences (AAPS), was recently interviewed by the AAPS as part of their Distinguished Pharmaceutical Scientist Video Series. Jusko Video

Center for Protein Therapeutics

Pharmaceutical researchers at the University at Buffalo have joined forces with scientists from several of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies to tackle fundamental research questions that need to be answered to advance development of promising protein-based drugs.

Their research will be carried out in the Center for Protein Therapeutics, headquartered in UB's New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus with additional facilities also available within the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The Center will conduct basic research and will train the scientists needed to build an intellectual infrastructure in this developing field.

Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences

The School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is proud of the integration of our research and the resulting partnerships we have with the New York State Center of Excellence (CoE) in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences. The New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences studies the mechanistic processes involved in human disease with the goal of developing diagnostic tools, therapeutic interventions and treatments to improve the health and well being of the population. Our integrations with the Center span research in pharmacy practice and the pharmaceutical sciences. Learn more about the Partnership with Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences.