Sub-Saharan Africa is home to a billion people and to overlapping health burdens, including the world’s highest rates of both malaria and HIV infection.
(left to right) The Galega officinalis (aka French lilac)was used as a folk remedy for diabetes symptoms for centuries before analysis of its extracts revealed compounds that lowered blood sugar. Eventually, metformin (molecule and pill) was developed. It is a related molecule that is longer acting and less toxic than the plant extracts. Metformin acts on cells in the liver (center and cross-section right) to reduce glucose production and thus blood sugar.
In people with type 2 diabetes, the body is less able to use the hormone insulin to regulate blood sugar. The disease affects 350 million patients globally—including 29 million in the United States, where it is the leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, and non-accident-related amputations.
In these multiple images of P. aeruginosa biofilm a bacterial community that takes the form of mushroom-like structures. The main, upper left image looks down at the biofilm, the lower, right-hand images show cross-sections. This biofilm was cultured from the airways of a patient with cystic fibrosis.
Nearly every human bacterial infection—including some of the most serious, life threatening, and costly to treat—can take the form of a biofilm, in which bacteria aggregate into structured communities that enclose themselves within a secreted slime.
Francesca Aweeka, PharmD, a faculty member in the School’s Department of Clinical Pharmacy, will co-lead a new five-year, $3.4 million study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to address one of the world’s most vexing health problems—preventing malaria, especially in the most...
I teach and precept pharmacy students and work with underserved populations at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. My research focuses on the clinical application of cardiovascular pharmacogenetic tests and pharmacoepidemiology.
I am a translational scientist with research interests that include pediatric cancer therapeutics, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, pharmacogenomics, and clinical trial design. The majority of my research is focused around the chemotherapeutic and immunosuppressive agents used in the...
My clinical practice and research focus on the drug treatment of epilepsy and the genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors that influence drug response.
As a faculty member in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, I investigate optimal drug discovery and development approaches using computational methods. I integrate data and knowledge to determine the optimal choices of precise and personalized treatments.
