Pharmacy awarded $14 million grant

The FAMU College of Pharmacy has received a $14 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health/National Centers for Research Resources to enhance its infrastructure in an effort to expand it cutting edge research capability.

Eighteen universities across the country received similar type grants-- mostly medical schools, said dean of FAMU College of Pharmacy Henry Lewis III.

"The grant award will support research projects such as drug discovery, neurodegeneration, nanomedicine, biotechnology and pilot projects," Lewis said.

In the area of drug discovery, the grant will aid in developing new drugs that can be used for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s; stroke; cancer (breast, prostate and lung); and emerging infectious diseases to uncover targets for therapy and translational research.

The neurodegenerative core will provide FAMU researchers with an understanding of neurotoxicity, the tendency of some treatments to cause damage to the nervous system, and its possible influence on the increased risk of neurological disorders and diseases such as Alzheimer’s, stroke and Parkinson’s. In the area of nanomedicine research, the grant will provide resources and expertise in the area of nanoparticles technology, which could be applied to imaging of various degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and stroke, and also target various receptors in disease states like cancer and Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome.

With concentrations in pharmacology/toxicology, medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutics and environmental toxicology, the College has graduated more than 60 percent of the African-American Ph.D. recipients in the pharmaceutical sciences nationally.