FAMU Pharmacy Among Nation's Best in Funded Research

Florida A&M University’s College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences was recently named by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research as one of the nation’s best in attracting federal dollars for research and development. The listing places FAMU 12th on a national list of institutions receiving grants and contracts from the National Institutes of Health, and the top program in the state of Florida.
“I am extremely proud of our faculty, administration, graduate students, and our research office assistants as we do our part to keep FAMU in its rightful place as a national leader in medical research and in training the next generation of pharmaceutical scientists and pharmacy professionals,” said COPPS Dean Michael D. Thompson, Pharm.D.
With a focus in minority health research and outcomes assessment, the college is of the country’s most active centers of training and applied science in addressing prevalent public health disparities among African Americans, Hispanics and other ethnic minorities. The list of recent grants includes:

• The FAMU-TCC Bridges to the Baccalaureate in the Biomedical Sciences Program received a total of $1,887,755 or $399,699 annually over five years in NIH-National Institute of General Medical Sciences funding. The Bridges program is intended to enhance the pool of community college students from diverse backgrounds nationally underrepresented in biomedical and behavioral sciences that go on to research careers in the biomedical and behavioral sciences as well as  participation in NIH-funded research.

• The FAMU P20 Center of Excellence for Cancer Research, Training and Community Service received the NIH-National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities grant for $5,443,319 in total or $980,609 per year across a five-year period. The P20 COE program’s overall goal and objective is to develop innovative cancer research (breast and lung) utilizing an interdisciplinary and synergistic approach toward addressing some of the most significant health consequences in minority and socioeconomic disadvantaged populations.

• The P20 Florida Minority Cancer Research and Training Center (MiCaRT) received $692,088 or $177,045 across a four-year period in NIH-National Cancer Institute funding. MiCaRT is the state’s first and only National Cancer Institute P20-funded minority institution/cancer center partnership focused on cancer research and training for African-Americans.

• The Support of Competitive Research (SCORE) had multiple SCORE SC1 (NIH-National Cancer Institute) awardees. Nazarius Lamango, Ph.D., as principal investigator, received a $1,351,400 award over a four-year period for his research, “Disrupting Polyisoprenylated Protein Function for Lung Cancer Therapy.” Mandip Sachdeva, Ph.D., principal investigator, received $1,156,275 over a four-year period for his research, “Targeted Nanocarriers for Treatment of Lung Cancer.”

• The College also received funding under the SCORE SC2 Award (NIH-National Cancer Institute). The SC2 mechanism provides early stage investigators the opportunity to test a new idea, or gather preliminary data to establish a new line of research. It also allows more experienced investigators to switch to a different research area from the one in which they have been engaged and published. Syreeta Tilghman, Ph.D., as principal investigator, was awarded $126,071.

• The Innovative Programs to Enhance Research Training (IPERT) program is designed to support stages of research career development from the undergraduate to the faculty level. IPERT complements the research training and research education programs at Florida A&M University.  Shawn Spencer, Ph.D., principal investigator, and Carl B. Goodman, Ph.D., as co-principal investigator, were awarded $2,541,585 total, or $527,517 annually for this program.

• The R21 (NIH-National Cancer Institute) grant was awarded to Mandip Sachdeva, Ph.D., principal investigator, in the amount of $340,901 or $182,126 over a two-year period for his research on the “Role of Telmisartan on Intra-Tumoral Distribution of Targeted Nanoparticles.” The grant is intended to encourage exploratory/developmental research by providing support for the early and conceptual stages of project development.