Tagged: Research

Cancer, fundamentally, is a problem of too much growth. For decades, health care providers have tried and failed to slow tumor growth using drugs that interfere with a particular signaling pathway, called PI3K, which is known to operate in proliferating cancer cells.

If it’s hard to take an accurate census of the 325 million people living in the US, it’s even more daunting to survey the 37.2 trillion or so cells that make up the human body. The brain alone, for instance, contains nearly 90 billion neurons, which can be classified into over a thousand distinct cell types.

Despite using opioids for centuries for pain management, we still don’t have a complete understanding of how drugs like morphine and oxycodone actually work. And that’s a problem for patients, who must weather side effects that can range from nausea and constipation to cognitive impairment, addiction, and, at high doses, even death.

In BPS 115, (Genetics and Pharmacogenetics), first year PharmD students study themselves at a genetic level using pharmacogenetic testing, and volunteer to share their data with each other. Data is aggregated for selected drug metabolizing genes-of-interest. These results are presented on “Reveal Day,” where students role-play doctor-patient consultations and review each “patient’s” proclivity for developing certain conditions and diseases. (See video links, below)

Aashish Manglik, MD, PhD, the newest member of the faculty of the UCSF School of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, was named a Pew Biomedical Scholar on June 14.