Science / Technology
Students Honored for Research, Leadership
- Fellowship winners Erik Serrao, left, and Tino Sanchez
- Photo/Kukla Vera
By Elizabeth Chapin on March 20, 2009 3:06 PM
USC School of Pharmacy Ph.D. candidates Erik Serrao, Tino Sanchez and Ben Xu have won fellowships to support their respective research projects in drug development and Pharm.D. candidate Paulin Heng received a student leadership award.
Doctoral student Sanchez received a two-year, $50,000 dissertation fellowship from the California HIV/AIDS Research Program. The program provides funding to support HIV/AIDS research in California.
Sanchez, who works in the lab of associate professor Nouri Neamati, is working toward the development of drugs for patients with HIV. The disease works by invading an immune cell, using three key enzymes - protease, reverse transcriptase, and integrase - for replication. Sanchez’s work targets the integrase enzyme as it is key in allowing viral DNA to invade host cells. Among HIV therapies, there is currently only one integrase inhibitor that is FDA-approved.
“HIV is the most unique and devastating virus known thus far with all sorts of tricks to evade eradication,” Sanchez said. “My work will give AIDS patients more hope at stemming the virus and evading the emergence of drug-resistant strains.”
To increase the likelihood of identifying effective compounds against the virus, Sanchez combines computer-based modeling with lab experimentation. This saves times and provides the best opportunity for his work to efficiently identify promising compounds.
Serrao, another grant winner doing HIV/AIDS research in the lab of Neamati, was awarded a $19,000 Oakley Fellowship, part of the USC Graduate School Endowed Fellowship Competition. The Oakley Fellowship is available to Ph.D. candidates in any field across the university.
Like Sanchez, Serrao’s research also targets the integrase enzyme. His work focuses on the development of new compounds that can inhibit HIV integrase from incorporating the virus into chromosomes.
Xu was awarded a Sjögren’s Syndrome Foundation student fellowship, which will help support his research project on an autoimmune disease characterized by tear gland inflammation and dry eye. According to the foundation, the disease affects as many as four million Americans.
Working toward the development of drugs for those suffering from the disease, Xu will use the $3,000 summer fellowship to study how antibodies are transported from the blood through the tear gland and into tears.
Xu is a Ph.D. student in the lab of Sarah Hamm-Alvarez, the Gavin S. Herbert Professor in Pharmaceutical Sciences and chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Science. Her lab is known for its work on Sjögren’s syndrome.
Third-year Pharm.D. candidate Paulin Heng received the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Student Leadership Award recognizing leadership in students interested in health-system pharmacy practice. Heng received a $2,500 cash award and a drug information library valued at more than $1,000.
In addition to leading various student pharmaceutical organizations, Heng also contributes to educational and screening programs that focus on underserved communities in Los Angeles.
Heng serves as the lead intern pharmacist at Olympia Medical Center in Los Angeles.
TAGS: research
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The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
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