The American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, or ASCPT, recognized six University of Florida College of Pharmacy trainees with ASCPT Presidential Trainee Awards during the organization’s 2017 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., March 15-18. The awards are given annually to the top scoring abstracts submitted by clinical pharmacologists in training. Only 28 young scientists received the presidential trainee honors, and UF’s six awardees were more than any other pharmacy college. UF’s award recipients included:
- Meghan Arwood, Pharm.D., BCPS, a clinical assistant professor of pharmacotherapy and translational research at the UF College of Pharmacy
- Ana Caroline Costa Sá, a graduate student in the department of pharmacotherapy and translational research
- Sarah Kim, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the department of pharmaceutics
- Mohamed H. Shahin, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the department of pharmacotherapy and translational research
- Vishnu D. Sharma, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the department of pharmaceutics
- Sonal Singh, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the department of pharmacotherapy and translational research
In addition to the presidential trainee award winners, Sumit Basu, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in pharmaceutics, Amelia Deitchman, Pharm.D., and Tanaya R. Vaidya, graduate students in the department of pharmaceutics, and Nihal El Rouby, Pharm.D., a graduate student in pharmacotherapy and translational research, were selected to receive travel grants to the ASCPT Annual Meeting.
Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Sarah Kim awarded prestigious David Goldstein Trainee Award at ASCPT Annual Meeting
Sarah Kim, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the department of pharmaceutics, was awarded the prestigious David Goldstein Trainee Award at the ASCPT Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., March 15-18. The Goldstein Award is presented each year to the top scoring trainee abstract and is in honor of longtime ASCPT member and leader, David Goldstein, M.D., Ph.D., who was committed to supporting trainees and their future scientific endeavors. Kim was one of six UF students to receive an ASCPT Presidential Trainee Award. Her presentation was titled, “An exemplar of a systems pharmacology approach for a detailed investigation of an adverse drug event as a result of drug-drug interactions.” Her work focused on the development of a systems pharmacology platform for drug safety testing to investigate the underlying molecular mechanisms and targets of drug-drug interactions. As a proof-of-concept study to develop the systems pharmacology platform, the underlying molecular mechanisms of trastuzumab-induced cardiotoxicity when given alone, or in combination therapy with other cardiotoxic and non-cardiotoxic drugs following a typical breast cancer treatment schema, were investigated. Kim works under the supervision of Mirjam Trame, Pharm.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of pharmaceutics.
Dean Johnson presides over ASCPT Annual Meeting in president’s role
University of Florida College of Pharmacy Dean and Distinguished Professor Julie Johnson, Pharm.D., presided over the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, or ASCPT, 2017 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. As president of ASCPT, Johnson led the meeting’s opening session, presented the Presidential Trainee Awards, chaired several sessions and hosted receptions, among her other other duties. An active member of ASCPT for more than 20 years, she has been involved in many ASCPT programs, task forces and committees, including the Scientific Program Committee, Membership Committee and Scientific Awards Selection and Strategic Planning Task Forces. During her year-long appointment as president, she helped advance the strategic plan that embraces a larger segment of translational medicine, worked with the journal’s editors to increase the amount of original research being published and reorganized the process by which the scientific program is assembled. On March 17, she officially handed over the presidential gavel and began her year as past-president.