37
Jessica Murray, PharmD Lipscomb University Jessica L. Murray is a fourthyear pharmacy student at Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy in Nashville, TN. She is interested in elucidating genetic and metabolic factors that influence adverse drug reactions and the impact of xenobiotics on disease progression. Her research, which is supported by the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education Gateway Research Scholarship, focuses on metabolic characterization of the opioid analgesic meperidine. Upon graduation, she plans to pursue a PhD and study inter-individual differences in drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics.
Angelique Nyinawabera University of Toledo Angelique I. Nyinawabera, a native of Rwanda, Africa, is a third-year PhD student in the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Toledo, Ohio. Nyinawabera holds a BS in chemistry from Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC. Nyinawabera’s graduate work is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms that make triple negative breast cancer a deadly disease in African-American women, which, due to lack of targeted therapy, is difficult to treat. Furthermore, currently used drugs work by inducing programmed pro-apoptotic cell death and are eventually rendered resistant by TNBC cells. Nyinawabera and the team led by Dr. Amit K. Tiwari at the Cancer Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics Laboratory discovered a novel class of TNBC targeted molecules that, at nano-molar concentrations, induce a unique cell death mechanism, selectively in TNBC cells, that is independent of apoptosis. These new agents inhibit autophagy, a cellsurvival process, and kill the cell through necroptosis.
Marta Sanchez Soto, PhD NINDS/NIH Marta Sanchez Soto attended the University of Barcelona and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology (2010) and a master’s degree in biomedicine (2011). At the end of 2012, she joined the lab of Sergi Ferré at NIDA/NIH as a PhD student, in partnership with Dr. Vicent Casadó at the University of Barcelona. During her stay at NIDA, she studied GPCR signaling and regulation of multi-receptor complexes, focusing on dopamine and adrenergic receptors. After graduating in January 2017, she joined the lab of Dr. David Sibley at NINDS/NIH as a postdoctoral fellow where she continues her research on the identification of mechanisms of receptor regulation, G protein and arrestin interactions, and molecular determinants of receptor activation using a wide variety of biophysical approaches, radioligand binding, and molecular biology techniques.
Priyanka Swami, MS North Dakota State University Priyanka Swami is a fourthyear PhD student in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at North Dakota State University (NDSU) in Fargo, ND. She completed her bachelor’s degree in pharmacy in India. After securing a scholarship from the government of India, she got her master’s degree in medicinal chemistry from the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, India. In pursuit of becoming a cancer biologist, Swami started her PhD at NDSU. Her research focuses on understanding the role of RAGE (Receptor for Advanced Glycation End-products) in pancreatic cancer. Currently, she is working on determining the efficacy of anti-RAGE molecules as a combination therapy in pancreatic cancer. She is also actively involved in various organizations and is the current vice-president of the College of Health Professions Ambassadors at NDSU. Through her research, she aspires to contribute significantly to the field of cancer therapeutics.
March 2018 • The Pharmacologist