USC Pharmacy Results Magazine - Fall 2019 Issue

PUBLISHED BY THE USC SCHOOL OF PHARMACY

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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

FALL 2019

HEALTHY FUTURES USC School of Pharmacy’s undergraduate program puts students on the path to achieving their professional goals.

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Michele Keller

MANAGING EDITOR

Susan L. Wampler

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Linda Wang

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Dora Dalton Stephanie Hedt Eric Lindberg Stan Wedeking DESIGN

Warren Group | Studio Deluxe PHOTOGRAPHY

Ed Carreon Michael Curtis Isaac Mora Reynaldo Obrero Glen Tao Linda Wang Sonya Yruel ILLUSTRATION

Clare Nicholas

© 2019 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SCHOOL OF PHARMACY

Letters to the editor, questions, comments, address changes, requests to be added/ removed from the mailing list and all other inquiries should be addressed to:

Michele Keller

Director of Communications and Marketing USC School of Pharmacy 1985 Zonal Avenue – PSC 700 Los Angeles CA 90089-9121 kellermi@usc.edu 323-442-3497 PHARMACYSCHOOL.USC.EDU

DEAN

Vassilios Papadopoulos, DPharm, PhD, DSc (hon) BOARD OF COUNCILORS

William A. Heeres, Chair Melvin F. Baron Gale Bensussen Roslyn Ellison Blake Mark Clein Danielle C. Colayco William (Bill) Crown Daniel Gil Amy (Amarylis) Gutierrez Dolly Harris Dianne Jung Dong Koo (D.K.) Kim Vinson Lee Newell McElwee David Neu William Pih Denis Portaro Jacque J. Sokolov Eileen C. Goodis Strom Khanh-Long (Ken) Thai

ABOUT THE USC SCHOOL OF PHARMACY

One of the top 10 pharmacy schools nationwide and the highestranked private school, the USC School of Pharmacy continues its century-long reputation for innovative programming, practice and collaboration.

The school created the nation’s first Doctor of Pharmacy program, the first clinical pharmacy program, the first clinical clerkships, the first doctorates in pharmaceutical economics and regulatory science, and the first PharmD/MBA dual-degree program, among

other innovations in education, research and practice. The USC School of Pharmacy is the only private pharmacy school on a major health sciences campus, which facilitates partnerships with other health professionals as well as new breakthroughs in care. It also is the only school of pharmacy that owns and operates five pharmacies.

Center for Drug Discovery and Development. The school pioneered a national model of clinical pharmacy care through work in safetynet clinics throughout Southern California and is a leader in the safe, efficient and optimal use of medication therapy that can save lives and improve the human condition.

The school is home to the D.K. Kim International Center for Regulatory Science at USC, and is a partner in the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics and the USC

Results magazine, published semi-annually, highlights some of the school’s latest advances and achievements, as well as the faculty, students, alumni and donors who make this work possible.

Continuum of Healing The profession of pharmacy spans the history of humankind. Ancient Babylon provides the oldest known record of pharmacists at work. When the ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus shared his knowledge about the healing qualities of herbs circa 300 B.C., he effectively established the first pharmacy class. Pharmacy’s central role in healthcare officially took hold in the 17th century with the establishment in England of the first independent pharmacist guild.

In 1905, when the USC School of Pharmacy began its own history of innovation, deadly epidemics such as typhoid, yellow fever and smallpox were on the rampage. Ultimately, our profession was up to the task of helping eradicate those plagues, while our school became a global leader in pharmacy education, research, practice and service to vulnerable populations.

Now, in the 21st century, our field continues evolving. As a profession that links health sciences with pharmaceutical sciences in disease treatment and healthcare delivery, we are addressing the industry-wide shifts and additional academic training that must take place to fully leverage the potential of artificial intelligence and big data to transform drug development, diagnosis and even patient care. In this issue, you’ll meet new Assistant Professor Serghei Mangul, who exemplifies leadership in this realm as he works to demystify data-driven technology and enhance its use by scientists focused on human health.

Our cover story addresses new generations of healers as we highlight the school’s thriving new undergraduate program, established by Daryl Davies, associate dean for undergraduate education. Drawing some 400 students during the 2018–19 academic year, this curriculum not only introduces students to the spectrum of healthcare professions, but also provides the foundational knowledge on which they can build their futures.

Donors and collaborators are critical to helping fulfill our vision of improving the future of health around the world.

In this issue, you’ll read about the $17 million additional investment made by Leonard and Pamela Schaeffer in the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics.

You’ll also learn about a new $3 million contract the school has received from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to support our leadership of the California Right Meds Collaborative. Under the direction of Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs Steven Chen, this consortium aims to improve care through comprehensive medication management efforts. And you’ll read about some of our other faculty members’ latest research that is pioneering new breakthroughs with the promise to address previously intractable conditions — such as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education Annie Wong-Beringer’s work to reduce the threat of staph bloodstream infections.

This magazine showcases just a few examples of the many ways our faculty, students, alumni and supporters work to improve lives and communities everywhere.

Your partnership helps further our continuum of healing.

Vassilios Papadopoulos, DPharm, PhD, DSc (hon) Dean, USC School of Pharmacy John Stauffer Decanal Chair in Pharmaceutical Sciences

Computer illustration of budding yeast cells (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), which ferment sugar — producing alcohol and carbon dioxide in the process. The school’s new undergraduate degree in Pharmacology and Drug Development includes the course “Buzzed: Modern Substances of Abuse and Addiction,” which investigates the consequences of alcohol and substance use, the policies that regulate them and the social beliefs surrounding them. See story on page 12.

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Broad Spectrum 4 / STAPH CONTROL 5 / GLOBAL EXCHANGE 5 / TOP OF CLASS 6 / DEMOCRATIZING DATA: MEET SERGHEI MANGUL 8 / MOVING TARGETS: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 8 / PASSING THE TORCH 9 / CONTRACEPTION COLLABORATION 10 / E ARLY INTERVENTION LEADS TO LIFETIME BENEFITS 11 / SYMPOSIUM SPOTLIGHTS ORIGINAL RESEARCH 11 / PhD STUDENTS MAKE HISTORY Cover Story 12 / HEALTHY FUTURES: NEW UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM Feature 20 / RIGHT TIME FOR RIGHT MEDS COLLABORATIVE Giving 22 / D.K. KIM NAMES INTERNATIONAL REG SCI CENTER 22 / #DAYOFSCUPPORT 23 / SCHAEFFERS INVEST ADDITIONAL $17M Alumni 24 / RECOGNIZING LEADERSHIP: THE 2019 ALUMNI AWARDS 25 / ALUMNI DAY OF SERVICE 26 / CLASS NOTES Faculty 28 / NEW FACES

Contents

29 / NOVEL FRAMEWORK MEASURES VALUE IN HOSPITAL CARE 30 / RECENT AWARDS 30 / BARON AND WINCOR INDUCTED INTO CPhA HALL OF FAME 31 / ON THE MOVE: APPOINTMENTS AND PROMOTIONS 31 / COVER CHEMISTRY Students 32 / COMMENCEMENT 2019 33 / PHARMACY LEADERSHIP SEMINAR 34 / STUDENT SPOTLIGHTS 35 / A WEEK IN THE LIFE 36 / PHOTO SHOP

Lu Li, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dean Vassilios Papadopoulos, received the American Society of Andrology’s 2019 Anna Steinberger Female Trainee Research Excellence Award for her investigations on inducing the formation of human Leydig cells.

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Colored scanning electron micrograph of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria (round)

Staph Control A new USC study shows that controlling staph bloodstream infections by the three-day mark is an important milestone for ensuring patient survival.

The research provides guidance for future treatment protocols.

More people die from Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) bloodstream infections each year than from AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis combined. Like those diseases, S. aureus can be successfully treated, but controversy has long clouded the issue of which strategies are best.

New research from a team including USC School of Pharmacy faculty members Emi Minejima and Annie Wong-Beringer may put an end to that debate.

Their findings also suggest a flaw in the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s current guidelines, which call for alternative management if blood

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cultures remain positive for staph after seven days. That waits four days too long, according to the study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

“We found that three days of persistent bacteria in the blood was the most significant duration to differentiate survival versus death,” says Wong-Beringer, associate dean for research and graduate education. “Each day of persistent growth of S. aureus in the bloodstream past the initial blood culture was associated with a 16 percent increase in the risk of death.”

Source Control Matters The investigators also found that source control — the measures taken to eliminate the infection’s cause, control its spread and restore healthy function — is more important than which specific antibiotics are used. This is especially important considering that, even though

most treatment plans call for antibiotics, nearly a third of cases involve methicillinresistant S. aureus (MRSA), which is impervious to such drugs.

“For too long, the guidelines and physicians in practice have focused Annie Wong-Beringer (left) and Emi Minejima

GLOBAL EXCHANGE on trying to tweak antibiotic regimens, hoping one regimen might be magically better at improving outcomes than others,” says co-author Brad Spellberg, infectious diseases specialist and chief medical officer of Los Angeles County+ USC (LAC+USC) Medical Center. “But what this study finds is that the key is source control, not which antibiotics are used.”

This study is the largest of its kind, spanning three university-affiliated medical centers to focus on 884 adult patients with S. aureus. Patients were grouped by whether the infection’s duration was considered short (up to two days), intermediate (three to seven days) or prolonged (more than seven days).

Future Implications According to the authors, their findings warrant future interventional studies to evaluate whether early recognition of persistence at three days can improve patient outcomes by prompting a change in bacterial management.

“Prospective clinical trials on antibiotic treatment of staph bloodstream infection should consider clearance of blood by day three as an important study endpoint,” says Minejima, lead author and assistant professor of clinical pharmacy.

The research also suggests that differences in underlying biology of the infected host and/or virulence of the bacterial strain may contribute to persistent growth of the bacterium in the blood.

Each day about 1 in 31 hospital patients suffers a healthcare-associated infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Certain people are at greater risk, including those with weakened immune systems or those who have undergone specific medical procedures or have intravenous lines or other medical devices inserted in their bodies.

The study’s authors are affiliated with the USC School of Pharmacy, LAC+USC Medical Center, Keck School of Medicine at USC, and the departments of MedicineInfectious Diseases and Pharmacy at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena.

International students enjoying a day at Dodger Stadium

As part of a truly global university, the USC School of Pharmacy engages in academic and scientific exchanges with partners around the world through initiatives such as the International Pharmacy Summer Program.

This summer, the school welcomed 68 students from India, China, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong to campus to learn about pharmacy education and practice in the

United States and visit local pharmacies and clinics.

They also got to experience some of what Los Angeles has to offer, with group excursions to the Hollywood Pantages Theatre and Dodger Stadium. The annual summer program was spearheaded by the late Michael Z. Wincor, PharmD ’78, associate dean for global initiatives, and continues to expand and thrive.

Top of Class The 2018 USC School of Pharmacy PharmD class had the state’s highest pass rate — 97.7 percent — on the California Practice Standards and Jurisprudence Examination for Pharmacists (CPJE). This far exceeded the overall statewide CPJE pass rate of 78.2 percent.

The class also demonstrated a 96.49 percent first-time pass rate on the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination (NAPLEX), according to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. The overall national pass rate is 93.9 percent.

Earning a pharmacist’s license in California requires passing both exams.

97.7%

96.49%

“These results are a testament to the high quality of our curriculum and the dedication of our esteemed faculty, as well as the hard work and rigorous preparation on the part of our high-caliber students,” says Vassilios Papadopoulos, dean of the USC School of Pharmacy.

USC’s 2018 CPJE pass rate, far exceeding the statewide rate of 78.2%

NAPLEX pass rate, compared with 93.9% nationally

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Democratizing Data Assistant Professor Serghei Mangul developing nations on how to enhance combines expertise in computational their bioinformatics programs through biology and bioscience to help close cloud computing and big data analysis. the digital divide that can prevent Nature Biotechnology published the life scientists from maximizing the concept paper, and Mangul’s team also potential of data-driven investigations. developed an online resource guide.

He joined the school’s Titus Family “A computer and a high-speed internet Department of Clinical Pharmacy in connection are all that’s required for September after completing a postgood bioinformatics studies, and these doctoral fellowship at UCLA’s Institute resources are often already at univerfor Quantitative and Computational sities in lower-income countries,” he Biosciences. Before that, he was a adds. “There is already a lot of publicly visiting scholar at Harvard Medical School available data in genomics and in related after earning his PhD in bioinformatics fields that could yield impactful insights at Georgia State University. that would be locally relevant.”

Mangul’s research focuses on Mangul is also committed to involving improving the techniques of bioinforgreater numbers of undergraduates in matics — computational analysis of genomics research. At UCLA, he ran the biological data — to better underUndergraduates in Genomics program. stand the mechanisms of disease. “The “Engaging undergraduates in mission of my lab is to design, develop computational tasks can improve and apply novel and robust data-driven, genomic research and laboratory computational approaches that will productivity, benefiting students, accelerate the diffusion of genomics postdoctoral scholars and senior and biomedical data into translational laboratory members,” he says. “For research and education,” he says. undergraduates who are primarily “Dr. Mangul is an outstanding involved in the life sciences, participatscientist and a rising star in the fields ing in computational genomic research of bioinformatics and genetics,” says can be a transformational experience Paul Beringer, chair of the Titus Family in interdisciplinary teamwork that Department of Clinical Pharmacy. “We increasingly characterizes modern life are excited about his recruitment and sciences research.” having him be part of our emerging Serghei’s methodology on how to clinical data science group.” involve undergraduates in genomics Mangul was born in Moldova, which research was also published in was once part of the Soviet Union and is Nature Biotechnology. now considered a lower-middle-income “Serghei is part of the school’s country. He feels strongly that the continuing growth in data science,” interdisciplinary field of bioinformatics Dean Vassilios Papadopoulos says. should not be the sole province of “He stands out for his creativity, and his wealthy nations. presence here will allow USC to expand While at UCLA, Mangul helped create collaborations with other schools.” a plan for training research faculty in

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MOVING TARGETS: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE How is big data revolutionizing medicine?

The 18th annual Moving Targets event in August aimed to answer this question.

The daylong research symposium, presented by the USC student chapter of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, brings together USC students with some of the world’s foremost authorities for interdisciplinary dialogue. More than 200 attendees participated this year.

Healthcare data is a public good and should be treated as such, said morning keynote speaker Leo Anthony Celi, clinical research director and principal research scientist in the Laboratory of Computational Physiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“This era of guessing all the time is coming to an end,” he said. “Every minute, a medical decision is made that could be more safe, more objective, more precise.”

Timothy Sweeney, co-founder and CEO of Inflammatix Inc., which uses machine learning and big data to interpret “reading patterns” of the immune system, gave the afternoon keynote.

Featured speakers included Adam Renslo, co-director of the Small Molecule Discovery Center at the University of California, San Francisco; Bin Chen, assistant professor of pediatrics and human development at Michigan State University, whose lab is developing computational tools to discover better therapeutic candidates for cancers; Klaus Romero, director of the Center for Quantitative Drug and Disease Modeling at the USC School of Pharmacy; Michael Engles, senior biological research scientist at Allergan; and pediatric cardiologist Jennifer Miller, a digital health fellow at the USC Center for Body Computing.

The 2019 student organizing committee included PhD students Amy Tran (chair), Rita Li (vice chair), Samuel Garza (secretary), Yue Zhang (treasurer), Melanie Galano and Charlie Chen (communications co-chairs), and Minchang Choi and Christina Lin (social co-chairs).

PASSING THE TORCH The 197 members of the Class of 2023 took the first steps on their journey to becoming doctors of pharmacy during the annual White Coat Ceremony on August 22.

This year, eight students were coated by a special pharmacist in their lives. The crowd cheered as mothers, fathers, sisters and mentors helped coat their loved ones.

When alumna Jennifer Chan, PharmD ’03, attended the school, the White Coat Ceremony had not yet become tradition, so she said it was particularly meaningful to be on stage coating her daughter, Rebecca Chan, PharmD ’23.

“My white coat reminds me to always do the right thing, to serve patients with

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compassion and never stop learning,” Chan said. “I hope to pass that on to my daughter.”

For the younger Chan, those lessons were instilled at a young age. “I hope to serve and impact my community as my mom and so many others before me have done,” she said.

The ceremony was also memorable for Martin Kim, who coated his son Michael Kim, PharmD ’23.

“As a pharmacist myself, I know that it will be a great lifelong journey caring for and nurturing patients with joy and dignity,” Kim said. “I’m so proud to welcome Michael into the pharmacy profession.”

Jennifer Chan, PharmD ’03, coating her daughter, Rebecca

Every month of added life is a bonus for the insurer, both in postponing benefits and in collecting additional premiums.

Dana P. Goldman and Darius Lakdawalla, “Health Care’s Killer App: Life Insurance,” in the Wall Street Journal, March 20

Robert Popovian, PharmD ’93, MS ’96, vice president for U.S. government relations at Pfizer Inc., was the featured guest at the Dean’s Speaker Series in March.

He discussed drug pricing, spending and affordability, and shared insights from his more than two decades of experience in the biopharmaceutical and healthcare industries.

CONTRACEPTION COLLABORATION Even as unplanned pregnancy rates go down overall, disparities still exist across racial and geographic lines. Alumni Tara Walker, PharmD ’16, Danielle Colayco, PharmD ’08, MS ’10, and Rina Yacobi, PharmD ’16, collaborated with Associate Professor Grant D. Lawless to conceive a study exploring the reasons why.

Published in the Journal of Contemporary Pharmacy Practice, the research identified factors behind the high rate of unplanned pregnancies in a rural community of Delano, California.

The team also gauged the interest of local women in taking advantage of pharmacistprescribed contraception. The study’s findings may aid pharmacists in providing family planning services.

Sixty percent of the women surveyed reported at least one unplanned pregnancy. Surprisingly, most participants claimed to have health insurance that covered contraception. The researchers also found that women with a history of emergency contraceptive use and those too embarrassed to buy condoms were more likely to be interested in the pharmacist’s services than other respondents.

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EARLY INTERVENTION LEADS TO LIFETIME BENEFITS Serious mental illness carries devastating personal and financial costs for those afflicted, their families and society. While it has long been assumed that early interventions lead to lifetime benefits, little evidence existed to back this up. New research led

by USC School of Pharmacy Associate Professor Seth Seabury changes this, finally bolstering the assertion with solid data.

His team’s study, conducted at the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics and published in Health Affairs, employed the center’s Future Adult Model for a simulation examining the lifelong consequences of serious mental illnesses for people diagnosed before age 25. The researchers estimate the lifetime burden to be $1.85 million per patient.

They also concluded that interventions improving educational attainment for patients would reduce costs by more than $73,000 per patient. “Our findings point to the importance of policies that promote early identification and access to appropriate services,” Seabury says.

Although some previous studies showed the positive impacts of early identification, diagnosis and treatment on quality of life, they did not assess the benefits of these interventions across individual life spans.

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Results of the simulations show that these illnesses, which include psychoses, major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder, significantly worsen lifetime health outcomes, raise medical costs and reduce economic outcomes. People showing serious mental illness by age 25 lost an average of nearly 10 years in life expectancy and $537,000 in lifetime earnings.

In California alone, the simulation showed savings of more than $900 million over the lifetimes of the state’s roughly 16,600 25-year-olds currently living with serious mental illness if an early intervention to support educational achievement were implemented.

“That’s a 1.6 rate of return on investment,” Seabury notes, emphasizing that the price of interventions should be considered an investment.

Seabury presented the findings to policymakers and mental health advocates at a briefing at the Capitol in Sacramento.

The Schaeffer Center co-hosted the event with the Steinberg Institute, an organization founded by Sacramento Mayor and former State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg to enhance policymaking related to mental health.

Symposium Spotlights Original Research The USC School of Pharmacy’s second annual Scholarly Project Symposium showcased original research by third-year PharmD students. Participants competed for awards by presenting posters of work conducted individually and in teams.

Topics included optimization of automated dispensing machines, minimizing health disparities in urban safety-net clinics, marijuana’s therapeutic potential for reducing opioid dependence, and differences in regulatory review between the U.S. and Europe. Each presentation was evaluated by one of eight panels of judges composed of faculty, staff, alumni and preceptors.

“We think it’s important for all pharmacy students to participate in the process of scientific inquiry, to learn how to develop a research question and take that all the way through data collection to presentation,” says Rory Kim, assistant professor of clinical pharmacy and the symposium’s faculty organizer.

Funded by the alumni association, the daylong symposium provides a taste of what professional research conferences are like.

In addition, “it gives our students the chance to interact with our alumni, faculty and preceptors and engage and network with them in a professional setting,” Kim notes.

“Finding the passion within my project, getting it done and seeing everyone else here — it ended up being well worth every minute of time we put into it,” says third-year student Deep Patel, whose team project assessed the need for educational interventions on products containing marijuana.

Patel adds that he was impressed and inspired to see the breadth and depth of his classmates’ research projects. “Each one was different but also very vital to our profession,” he says. “Our profession doesn’t have a roof — it keeps growing.”

Rory Kim, Emily Taing, recipient of the Alumni Board Award for Excellence in Scholarship, and her faculty advisor, Annie Wong-Beringer, associate dean for research and graduate education

Jianming Xie, Daryl Davies, Larry Rodriguez, Joshua Silva, Alicia Warnecke, Jenny Park, Paul Beringer and Rebecca Lim

PhD Students Make History In an unprecedented achievement, five USC School of Pharmacy PhD students received American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education (AFPE) 2019 Pre-Doctoral Fellowships in Pharmaceutical Sciences: » Rebecca Lim, PhD student in pharmaceutical sciences (faculty mentor Jianming Xie, assistant professor, pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences) » Jenny Park, PhD student in clinical and experimental therapeutics (faculty mentor Paul Beringer, chair, Titus Family Department of Clinical Pharmacy) » Larry Rodriguez, PhD student in pharmaceutical sciences (faculty mentor Daryl Davies, associate dean for undergraduate education and professor of clinical pharmacy) » Joshua Silva, PhD student in clinical and experimental therapeutics (faculty mentor Daryl Davies) » Alicia Warnecke, PhD student in clinical and experimental therapeutics (faculty mentor Daryl Davies) The USC School of Pharmacy is the only pharmacy school to garner five such awards in one year, according to AFPE President Ellen L. Woods.

The AFPE Pre-Doctoral Fellowship program seeks to positively impact patient and public health by supporting high-performing students who possess the skill and aptitude to become scientists and leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, academia and government/nonprofit sectors. Awardees receive a $10,000 stipend and are selected based on their research plans and experience, academic performance, leadership and character.

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BY LINDA WANG

USC School of Pharmacy’s undergraduate program puts students on the path to achieving their professional goals.

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Kaitlyn Park is building an impressive curriculum vitae. Her group poster presentation on historically underrepresented populations in clinical trials earned first place in a 2019 USC-wide research symposium.

She has lab experience and works on a regulatory and quality sciences

“

I want to help create new therapies for diseases that have affected my family and other families.

research team at the USC School of Pharmacy.

But she’s not a graduate student — yet. Instead, Park is among the first 11 students to earn the school’s new undergraduate degree, a bachelor of science in Pharmacology and Drug Development. The school introduced the trailblazing major in 2017, one year after the launch of the undergraduate minor in Science and Management of Biomedical Therapeutics.

“No other undergraduate major with

RONNELLE COPES

an emphasis on pharmacology spans

CLASS YEAR: 2020

the entire spectrum of clinical

HOMETOWN: Denver, Colorado

practice, drug discovery, regulatory science and health economics,” Dean Vassilios Papadopoulos says.

MAJOR: Pharmacology and Drug Development MINOR: Hip Hop, Street and Social Dance Forms → Copes made the Dean’s List for fall

2018 and spring 2019. → “I started leaning toward a career

in pharmacy after watching my mother struggle with arthritis and lupus for years.”

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A CLOSER LOOK AT PHARMACOLOGY AND DRUG DEVELOPMENT UNDERGRADUATE COURSES BREAKING BRAINS: PHARMACOLOGY OF THE ADDICTED BRAIN Examines addicted brains and how drugs of abuse “hijack” the brain’s natural reward system. Students learn that alcohol is actually killing more people than the opioid epidemic.

BUZZED: MODERN SUBSTANCES OF ABUSE AND ADDICTION Investigates the “high” one experiences after smoking various plants, drinking alcoholic beverages or ingesting certain substances, and how substances of abuse and addiction work, the consequences of their use, the policies that regulate them and the social beliefs surrounding them.

Students learn that, in 15 states, unintentional overdoses due to cough syrup abuse have nearly replaced car accidents as the leading cause of accidental death.

“

‘Buzzed’ is my first pharmacyrelated class.

I received evidence-based information instead of information that’s politically charged.

DISCOVERY, DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING OF MEDICINES Reviews the principles, concepts, challenges and shortcomings of modern drug discovery, and the development and marketing of medicines. Students learn that developing a new drug costs $1 billion to $2 billion, and that 95 percent of drug-discovery efforts fail.

MYSTERIOUS DEATHS: TOXICOLOGY, POISONS, LITERATURE, HISTORY Explores the intrigue and suspense around the use of poisons in history, politics, storytelling and entertainment. Students learn that, during Prohibition, the U.S. government ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. An estimated 10,000 people died as a result.

This led to the emergence of forensic toxicology in the United States.

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ASHLEY KHORSANDI CLASS YEAR: 2019 HOMETOWN: Beverly Hills, California MAJOR: Health Promotion and Disease Prevention → “After taking the class, I now want to

pursue pharmacy and tackle some of the problems we’ve learned about.” → Khorsandi is a contemporary music

composer and pianist.

FILLING THE GAP

BRYSON CHOY Daryl Davies, associate dean for undergraduate education, spearheaded the program to give students a foundational education for careers in pharmacy, medicine, dentistry and the biotechnology, pharmaceutics and biomedical industries.

“There was a significant hole in education for undergraduates thinking about pre-medicine, pre-pharmacy and other health professions,” he says. “No pharmacology was being taught, even though it’s a really important component for a lot of health careers.”

CLASS YEAR: 2022 HOMETOWN: Honolulu, Hawaii MAJOR: Pharmacology and Drug Development; Quantitative Biology → “I love surfing (not in L.A., though,

because the water is too cold).” → Choy’s parents both went to USC for

their undergraduate degrees and for dental school.

“The major exposes you to a lot of different routes you can take,” says Gilberto Peña, Class of 2020. “I’m glad I’m getting the exposure in undergrad.”

In creating a new program from the ground up, Davies drew upon existing resources at the School of Pharmacy, especially its renowned faculty. Professors from all four departments at the school — clinical pharmacy, pharmaceutical and health economics, pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences, and regulatory and quality sciences — have added the undergraduate courses to their workloads.

“The need was there, the demand was there and the enthusiasm from the founding faculty was there,” Davies says. “There was no way this was going to fail.”

So far, that’s an understatement. The program’s major, minor and associated courses have experienced rapid growth. By the 2018–19 academic year, 39 students had declared the major and 21 students were pursuing the minor, while an estimated 400 students were enrolled in the program’s courses overall.

“

I wanted to know more about drug discovery and drug development and its practical application because I want to start a company in drug discovery.

My dream is to discover drugs to treat rare diseases.

Other members of the inaugural faculty were Frances Richmond and Eunjoo Pacifici of the Department of Regulatory and Quality Sciences. Today, 10 School of Pharmacy faculty members teach in the program.

The program has also become a pipeline for graduate degree offerings in the School of Pharmacy. Of the first 11 students to earn the school’s undergraduate degree, nine have enrolled in the Doctor of Pharmacy program.

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ROLE: Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education HOMETOWN: San Pedro, California ON FACULTY SINCE: 1997 UNDERGRADUATE COURSES INCLUDE: Pharmacology and Drug Development, Neuropharmacology in Health and Disease, Human Pharmacology: Challenge of Therapeutics in Society, Pharmacology and Sociology of Drug Abuse → Davies is passionate about sailing. → “This is a fun time to be in science.

This program is attracting students from all kinds of backgrounds, including aspiring lawyers and real estate developers.”

“

We’re going to see incredible innovation in the next 10 to 25 years. This program will prepare students to be the leaders of this next wave of innovation.

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CAREER BUILDER

DARYL DAVIES

“It’s a very diverse program, with students who are in pre-pharmacy, pre-med, psychology, engineering and more,” says Annie Xie, BS Pharmacology and Drug Development ’19. “The faculty are really invested in helping us get what we need from the program — no matter what career path we’re on.”

While most students in the major plan to advance to graduate degrees in pharmacy, the growing program has seen others enter medical school, law school and the pharmaceutical industry.

“I bring in people from Allergan, Amgen and other big players in the pharmaceutical industry to speak to my classes so students can interact and network with the people they learn about,” Davies says.

This emphasis on career guidance was deliberately built into the program from the start, from its innovative curriculum to its rapidly growing career counseling component.

The employment opportunities for students interested in both clinical and nonclinical careers are endless, Davies says. If students home in on the right path for them at the undergraduate level, they can shape their curricula and build a strong foundation of expertise earlier than their peers. Bryson Choy, class of 2022, is doing just that. He came into USC with a vague interest in medicine, but after taking courses such as “Discovery, Development and Marketing of Medicines,” he now wants to start his own company in drug discovery. “My dream is to discover drugs to treat rare diseases,” Choy says.

“If you’re prescribing drugs or discovering drugs in the pharmaceutical industry, you need to know how a drug acts in the body, how a drug acts differently on me than it does on you and how dosage is determined,” Davies notes. “We want to introduce these concepts now, so students will be more competitive in the job market.”

RELEVANT COURSES

The undergraduate program is providing the right curriculum at the right time, even as it will adapt to future needs. Recent genomic breakthroughs, novel biologics and advances in immunotherapy are among the changes in healthcare that have shaped course offerings.

“Seeing these emerging fields, and even how technology is rapidly changing the current landscape, we were able to incorporate relevant, innovative courses from the start,” Davies says. “That’s the advantage of starting this program when we did.”

The curriculum also addresses societal challenges. For example, “Buzzed: Modern Substances of Abuse and Addiction” is an upper-division course focusing on the effect

of drugs both legal and illicit on individual and public health.

“We’re learning about addiction, but we’re also learning about all the societal weight that comes with addiction,” says Ashley Khorsandi, BS Health Promotion and Disease Prevention ’19. Although “Buzzed” was her first pharmacy-related course, the class had a profound impact on her. “I now want to pursue pharmacy and tackle some of the problems we’ve learned about,” she says.

As the pharmaceutical industry and drugs of addiction continue to dominate headlines, “Buzzed” instructor Terry David Church’s main priority is to provide students with a safe space to talk openly about drugs in a way that makes them feel comfortable and

engaged. The class explores a wide range of topics, from steroids and marijuana to heroin and hallucinogens.

“I grew up in a generation where there was a lot of misinformation about drugs in general,” says Church, associate director of undergraduate programs. “I realized that we weren’t arming students with evidence-based information about the illicit drugs they may encounter or might deal with in their future practice, and that’s how the class got started.”

“Substance abuse, alcoholism — these things aren’t going away, so the more information and exposure students receive now, the better off they are no matter what field they decide to pursue,” Davies adds.

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FUN PHARMACY FACTS The undergraduate program encompasses the full spectrum of pharmacy’s past and possibilities, including the inventiveness of its practitioners. The profession’s lineage includes the facts that: ► In addition to being a founding father, Benjamin Franklin’s polymathic career included being a pharmacist. ► Before he turned traitor, Benedict Arnold owned an apothecary shop (as pharmacies were then known).

GILBERTO PEÑA CLASS YEAR: 2020 HOMETOWN: Lynwood, California MAJOR: Pharmacology and Drug Development MINOR: O rganizational Leadership and Management → A spring break service trip with USC

Global Medical Training to set up mobile clinics in the Dominican Republic during his sophomore year solidified his desire to be in the health field. → Peña studied in Rome during his

first semester at USC.

► Before he developed his theory of gravity, Isaac Newton had a down-to-earth career as an apprentice apothecary. ► Famed mystery author Agatha Christie worked as a pharmacy technician (doubtless why poisons appear in so many of her books). ► Coca-Cola was invented in 1886

by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton, whose previous concoction, French Wine Coca, mixed wine with cocaine. ► Pharmacists also created Dr. Pepper, Pepsi and Vernors Ginger Soda.

“

I want to pursue a career in pharmacy.

My dad’s a pharmacy technician, so I was exposed to the profession from a young age. I gained mentorship from my dad’s coworkers.

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WHAT’S AHEAD

Of course, healthcare ambitions are not a prerequisite for an interest in pharmacy.

The program’s general education courses function as a gateway for students who are figuring out their futures — even as they study the past. This is particularly true of “The History and Geography of Drugs,” which explores how drugs have shaped the world.

The course attracts up to 170 students each semester, predominantly freshmen.

“The more general ed courses we develop, the more students we will recruit,” notes Church, who adds that the undergraduate program widens students’ professional horizons. “A lot of them come into these courses saying: ‘I didn’t know this career was a possibility. I didn’t know it existed.’”

“

I wanted to create a class where we’re arming students with evidence-based information about illicit drugs in an engaging way within a safe environment.

Davies believes that the undergraduate curriculum will have even more impact in the years ahead. “We’re going to see incredible innovation in the next 10 to 25 years,” he says. “This program will prepare students to be the leaders of this next wave of innovation.”

TERRY CHURCH ROLE: Associate Director, Undergraduate Education HOMETOWN: Smethport, Pennsylvania ON FACULTY SINCE: 2018 UNDERGRADUATE COURSES INCLUDE: Buzzed: Modern Substances of Abuse and Addiction, History and Geography of Drugs → Church is a cyclist and has participat-

ed in two charity bike rides from San Francisco to Los Angeles that included more than 500 participants. → “I’m interested in regulatory science

because addiction and addiction care are huge problems that are currently underregulated. If drugs aren’t prescribed, how can we track them? If addiction isn’t studied, how can we talk about it?”

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CRMC founder Steven Chen (second from right) talks with Sam Lee, Tony Kuo and Alex Kang at Garfield Prescription Pharmacy in Baldwin Hills.

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RIGHT TIME FOR RIGHT MEDS Poor adherence to prescription medications harms health and strains resources. A $3 million contract will help fund a learning collaborative launched by the USC School of Pharmacy that aims to save lives and cut costs through comprehensive medication management.

The USC School of Pharmacy has received a $3 million contract from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) to support its leadership of the California Right Meds Collaborative (CRMC), a consortium of health plans, pharmacies, and academic and professional organizations working to improve continuity of care through comprehensive medication management (CMM). CRMC seeks to engage patients as partners with pharmacists and physicians, to ensure that vital medications are selected, monitored and taken to optimize results and minimize side effects.

“Our mission is to reduce the burden of chronic disease by advancing the role of pharmacists in the healthcare system, thus increasing the number of adults in Los Angeles County with access to high-quality health services and community resources for chronic disease prevention and control,” says Steve Chen, associate dean for clinical affairs and USC principal investigator. He founded CRMC in 2018.

The five-year contract is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through DPH as part of a program promoting innovative approaches to stem the rising rates of diabetes, heart disease and stroke across the nation.

As part of the project, USC will train 50-75 Los Angeles–based pharmacists per year on how to initiate or advance CMM in clinic and community pharmacy settings. The goal is to strengthen and scale the use of CMM in communities burdened by high rates of uncontrolled chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure. To further leverage this effort, USC and fellow CRMC members will conduct rigorous evaluations so that CDC, other government organizations, healthcare payers, legislators and others can learn from this work.

“USC is the preeminent school of pharmacy in Los Angeles County and they’ve been doing a wonderful job building out the California Right Meds Collaborative,” says Tony Kuo, director of the Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention at DPH. “CDC has a lot of interest in using this type of learning collaborative as a vehicle to increase the critical mass of healthcare providers who can work with patients effectively in the community. This model could give people greater access to team-based healthcare.”

PRESCRIPTIONS FOR HEALTHIER COMMUNITIES CDC funds will also help support Chen and CRMC in:

Cost of Poor Adherence Nationally, poor adherence to prescription medications is reaching epidemic proportions, resulting in adverse health outcomes, avoidable hospitalizations and higher risk of death. In total, suboptimal use of medications incurs as much as $528.4 billion in avoidable medical spending each year.

More than half of all Americans have one or more chronic diseases — and, for 90 percent of these patients, medications are the first line of treatment. Optimizing medication usage is a crucial step in transforming the healthcare system to improve care and reduce costs.

“We’re thinking of new ways to make everyone healthier,” says Alex Kang, director of Clinical Pharmacy for L.A. Care Health Plan, a CRMC partner that provides access to quality healthcare for Los Angeles County’s vulnerable and low-income communities. “This CDC contract has given us the opportunity to partner with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and the USC School of Pharmacy to leverage the availability and skills of trained communitybased pharmacists offering CMM for our patients.”

Increasing the use of pharmacists as “care extenders” is a key part of the initiative. As fixtures in the community, pharmacists are uniquely positioned to provide care that is easily accessible to diverse populations. By developing supportive relationships that help people correctly and consistently take their medications, pharmacists also empower patients to take control of their own health.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for the USC School of Pharmacy to again demonstrate and evaluate a model of care that leverages the expertise of pharmacists to cost-effectively improve health outcomes,” Dean Vassilios Papadopoulos says. “We appreciate the county and CDC’s support in allowing us to expand our work through this important project that promises to provide desperately needed comprehensive medication management services to some of the most vulnerable members of our community.”

Integrating mobile health technology approaches into advanced pharmacy practice Widening the impact of the Los Angeles Barbershop Blood Pressure Study — which teams pharmacists with barbers to provide hypertension services to African-American men in their communities — by adapting its methods into a sustainable model Creating materials to spread awareness and knowledge about prediabetes to health system and health plan administrators and healthcare providers Devising an algorithm for identifying patients with undiagnosed or undertreated hypertension in low-income clinics Training community health workers in the best practices for engaging individuals with chronic conditions and for referring them to chronic disease self-management and lifestyle change programs Developing continuing medical education modules to build the case for increased use of team-based care approaches

To learn more about the California Right Meds Collaborative, visit calrightmeds.org

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D.K. Kim Names International Reg Sci Center Longtime supporter Dong Koo (D.K.) Kim — founder of BP Industries Inc. and the D.K. Kim Foundation — has made an endowment gift to name the D.K. Kim International Center for Regulatory Science at USC. He was feted at an event on May 2 at the California Science Center’s Endeavour Shuttle room — a fitting location to acknowledge his latest investment, which will further the center’s ongoing endeavors in regulatory science research, educational initiatives and international activities.

Some 120 attendees heard talks from Kim, Dean Vassilios Papadopoulos, Frances Richmond — chair and founder of the Department of Regulatory and Quality Sciences — and Eunjoo Pacifici, director of the D.K. Kim International Center for Regulatory Science. The evening also celebrated the 10th anniversary of the doctoral program in regulatory and quality sciences.

Provost Michael Quick, Eunjoo Pacifici, D.K. Kim, Frances Richmond and Dean Vassilios Papadopoulos

Adriana Blachowicz, Michael Kessler and Michael Pazirandeh, along with other students and alumni, demonstrated the united spirit of the Trojan Family — as well as their individual motivations for making a difference — as part of the fourth annual USC Day of SCupport, on May 4, 2019.

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This new gift from the Schaeffers will help us extend our reach even further into the public and private sectors, bringing our evidence-based

Schaeffers Invest Additional $17M Leonard and Pamela Schaeffer celebrated the 10th anniversary of the center they created with an additional gift of $17 million. Their renewed investment in the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics bolsters its interdisciplinary pursuit of solutions to challenges related to rising healthcare costs, chronic disease and population health.

A partnership between the School of Pharmacy and USC Price School of Public Policy, the center focuses on improving access to high-quality, affordable care and producing effective solutions that lead to better policy decisions.

“The Schaeffers’ continuing generosity enables the center to keep widening its influence on policymakers, guiding crucial decisions that balance fair pricing with pharmaceutical innovation,” School of Pharmacy Dean Vassilios Papadopoulos says.

Goals for the funding include enhancing the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy, a collaboration with the Brookings Institution aimed at adding more evidence-based analysis to the national debate about healthcare. It will also establish the Elizabeth Garrett Chair in Health

Policy, Economics and Law in honor of the late USC provost. In addition, the gift will support the Leonard D. Schaeffer Fellows in Government Service program, which introduces undergraduates from USC and other leading universities to government work through high-level internships and professional development initiatives.

“This new gift from the Schaeffers will help us extend our reach even further into the public and private sectors, bringing our evidence-based expertise to bear on some of the most challenging healthcare issues facing society today,” notes Dana Goldman, the Leonard D. Schaeffer Director’s Chair and Distinguished Professor of Public Policy, Pharmacy and Economics at USC. “I am very proud of the work that the center has done in its first decade and the impact it has had on policy,” Leonard Schaeffer says. He and his wife established the center in 2009 and endowed it three years later with a $25 million donation.

Leonard Schaeffer was elected to the USC Board of Trustees in 2013 and is the Judge Robert Maclay Widney Chair at USC. He chairs the Schaeffer Center advisory board.

expertise to bear on some of the most challenging healthcare issues facing society today.

Dana Goldman, the Leonard D. Schaeffer Director’s Chair and Distinguished Professor of Public Policy, Pharmacy and Economics at USC

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RECOGNIZING LEADERSHIP:

The 2019 Alumni Awards 1

2

4

5

7

3

6

8

9

1. Debrina Johnson 2. Leonard D. Schaeffer 3. Martin (Marty) Solberg and family 4. Tony Kuo 5. Parvez Mulani’s family 6. Nine students received Inspire Awards at the 2019 Alumni Awards Gala (from left): Wendy Clark, DRSc ’21, Jingyu Sophia Chen, PhD ’20, Pooja Vijaya Vaikari, PhD ’20, Valerie Wang, PharmD ’22, John Dawod, PharmD ’21, Brian Lee, PharmD ’20, Diana Pan, MS ’19, Jiacheng Deng, MS ’20, and Lilia Earnest, PharmD/MBA ’19 (not pictured: Jonathan Salcedo, PhD ’21) 7. Li-Jiuan (Rita) Shen 8. Ken Thai 9. Sohail Masood

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The following outstanding individuals were honored for their contributions to the profession at the third annual USC School of Pharmacy Alumni Awards Gala on April 28 at Town & Gown:

Debrina Johnson, PharmD ’13, received the

Young Alumni Award. A board-certified geriatric pharmacist, she is lead clinical pharmacist at Inland Behavioral Health and Services, where she developed the organization’s treatment protocol for the chronic hepatitis C virus. She is also a consultant at Pharmacist Integrated Healthcare and an assistant professor in the Physician Assistant Program at University of La Verne. She currently serves as president of the Inland Empire Pharmacists Association.

The Honorary Alumni Award went to Tony Kuo, MD, MSHS, director of the Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention and director of the Office of Senior Health for L.A. County’s Department of Public Health.

He holds joint appointments at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health and David Geffen School of Medicine.

Kuo has more than 15 years of clinical practice experience in continuity, urgent/emergency and homeless shelter care.

The Distinguished Alumni Award was presented to Sohail Masood, PharmD ’88, president and CEO of KabaFusion. He is a pioneer in home-infusion services for intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) to treat patients with neuromuscular diseases through

Irv Sitkoff, PharmD ’54, and current students spent the 2019 Alumni Day of SCervice cleaning up Santa Monica Beach.

his company, Ultracare, and sponsored a landmark study of IVIG in 2001. Two-time Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, he is also a director for the Council of Pakistan American Affairs and a member of the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Society Advisory Board.

Parvez Mulani, PhD ’09, received the Innovation

in Pharmacoeconomics Award, in memoriam. He was vice president of Health Economics and Outcomes Research Immunology for Neuroscience and Oncology at Abbvie. As a manager and mentor, he was passionate about his team’s professional development, and created curricula on strategic thinking and emotional intelligence. He was also known as an extremely bright and strategic thinker who was driven to generate innovative research. He passed away in 2014.

The Dean’s Medallion Award was presented to Leonard D. Schaeffer. Founding chair and CEO of WellPoint (now Anthem), he is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and chair of the Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness. At USC, he serves on the Board of Trustees, is chair of the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics advisory board, holds the Judge Robert Maclay Widney Chair, and received the inaugural Sol Price Award for lifetime achievement as a business leader, policy expert and philanthropist.

Li-Jiuan (Rita) Shen, PhD ’04, received the

Research Achievement Award. She is dean of the

National Taiwan University School of Pharmacy, helped establish the first six-year PharmD program in Taiwan and has been key to facilitating reimbursement of pharmaceutical care within Taiwan’s national health insurance program. Her research focuses on clinical pharmacy and pharmacoepidemiology using big data analysis and protein drug delivery through specific transmembrane peptides. She has published more than 60 papers over the past decade.

The Innovation in Regulatory Science Award went to Martin (Marty) Solberg, DRSc ’11, MS ’08, MBA. Over the course of a 30-year career, he has held roles in manufacturing, quality, pharmacovigilance, drug development and compliance. In 2010, he joined Genzyme Sanofi in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is currently vice president of Global Regulatory Affairs and head of Rare Blood Disorders.

His USC doctoral dissertation was a study of the transparency of the drug registration process in Asia.

Ken Thai, PharmD ’02, received the Community Service Award. He is CEO of 986 Degrees Corporation, adjunct assistant professor of pharmacy practice at the USC School of Pharmacy and president-elect of the California Pharmacists Association. A strong advocate for community service, he facilitated a partnership between the USC School of Pharmacy and the Boys & Girls Clubs that resulted in a large-scale health fair and community outreach project for underprivileged youth and families in Southeast Los Angeles.

SAVE THE DATE

—

TROJAN FAMILY WEEKEND OCT. 31–NOV. 3

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class notes We want to hear from you! Email your updates and career news to pharmcom@usc.edu to be included in the next edition of Class Notes.

19 7 0 s

Frank Tornatore, PharmD ’77, PhD, is a clinical psychologist at PsychMed. Lawrence Bartlett, PharmD ’78, MBA, is director of pharmacy at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto, Calif.

Marvin Friedman, PharmD ’79, is a senior pharmacist at DSS Inc., a healthcare technology company.

1980 s

Stella Abnous-Abramian, PharmD ’97, is a staff pharmacist at Providence Health & Services.

Samy Shalaby, PharmD ’97, is pharmacy manager of The Medicine Cabinet Pharmacy.

Marina Snitman, PharmD ’99, is director of pharmacy at QueensCare Health Centers.

2000 s

Sheta Ara, PharmD ’01, is a clinical pharmacist at Envolve Pharmacy Solutions.

Gary Leach, PharmD ’80, is a community service leader for athletics for the city of Irvine.

Golbahar Yavari, PharmD ’02, is president, pharmacist and educator at Pass NAPLEX Now.

Pam Tarlow, PharmD ’81, is an integrative health pharmacist at Santa Monica Homeopathic Pharmacy and Cedars-Sinai Integrative Health.

Kelly Larrabee-Robke, MS Regulatory Science ’07, MBA, RN, is vice president of clinical thought leadership at Becton Dickinson.

Melanie Baker, PharmD ’88, is a staff pharmacist at AlixaRx.

Jonathan Watanabe, PharmD ’07, MS, PhD, is associate professor of clinical pharmacy at UC San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Godfrey Nwosu, PharmD ’89, is CEO of Safrey Enterprises, an online retailer.

1990 s

William Guyer, PharmD ’93, is senior vice president, head of medical affairs, at Gilead Sciences.

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Christopher Salvatori, PharmD ’93, is a clinical pharmacist at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, Calif.

SCHOOL OF PHARMACY

Peter Lee, PharmD ’08, is an ambulatory care pharmacy supervisor at Kaiser Permanente.

Amber Miller, PharmD ’09, is assistant clinical professor of pharmacy practice at University of the Pacific.

20 10 s

Elly Savoji, PharmD ’10, is an inpatient pharmacist at Kaiser Permanente.

Duane Mauzey, MS, DRSc ’12, is director of regulatory affairs at Dynavax Technologies.

Justin Yee, PharmD ’12, is a clinical pharmacist in emergency medicine at CHI Franciscan.

After working in a community pharmacy for four years, Vlada Manzur, PharmD ’13, returned to USC for a residency focused on pain management and opioid medication safety. Now, she is a clinical pharmacist at the Pain Management Clinic at Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills.

Karen Elmeri Zada, PharmD ’13, is a compliance officer/pharmacist manager at MDR Pharmaceutical Care.

Vincent Capati, PharmD ’14, MS Regulatory Science ’14, is an intellectual property associate at Wiley Rein LLP. Tamara Chinarian, PharmD ’15, is a clinical pharmacist at Orthopaedic Institute for Children.

Andy Gelejian, PharmD ’15, is director of specialty pharmacy operations at California Specialty Pharmacy.

Shawn Feldman, MS Healthcare Decision Analysis ’16, PharmD ’17, is senior manager of global marketing at Amgen.

Christy Harutunian, PharmD ’16, is senior manager of clinical

development, dermatology and medical aesthetics at Allergan.

Niloufar Iranmanesh, PharmD ’16, is a consultant pharmacist at Skilled Nursing Pharmacy and director of pharmaceutical services at HealthBridge Children’s Hospital.

Manan Amit Shah, PharmD ’16, is a client engagement manager at Symphony Health.

Alick Tan, MS Management of Drug Development ’16, PhD Clinical and Experimental Therapeutics ’17, is a regulatory affairs specialist at Abbott.

Danielle Colayco, PharmD ’08, MS ’10 — president of the Komoto Family Foundation and director of health outcomes for Komoto Healthcare — spoke to students in March about nontraditional career paths in pharmacy.

Sai Upadhyayula, PharmD ’17, is a student at UC Irvine School of Law and a law clerk at California Pharmacy Lawyers in Irvine. In summer 2019, he was an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in San Diego.

Jack Badaracco, MS Healthcare Decision Analysis ’18, PharmD ’18, is manager of health economics and market access at BluePath Solutions.

Kristina Schmidt, PharmD ’18, MS Healthcare Decision Analysis ’18, is a pharmacist at Cayucos Pharmacy.

Johannes van Dijk, PhD ’18, is a scientist at Zymergen, a biotechnology company in Emeryville, Calif., that specializes in molecular manufacturing technology.

Lilia Earnest, PharmD ’19, MBA, was selected for the Commercial Rotation Development Program at Genentech in San Francisco.

IN MEMORIAM

Jun Yamasaki, PharmD ’56, passed away on April 16, 2019.

A pharmacist for more than 50 years, he was a member of the Half Century Trojans and a lifetime member of the USC Pharmacy Alumni Association.

Ken Takeshi Yuge, PharmD ’83, passed away on June 16, 2019.

He was a loving husband to Dora, a great dad to Keith and a loyal friend to all.

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New Faces

David Dadiomov, PharmD, has joined the school as a clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice in the Titus Family Department of Clinical Pharmacy. A board-certified psychiatric pharmacist, he was previously an assistant professor at the Larkin University College of Pharmacy in Miami.

His research studies have ranged from the adverse effects of using ketamine for depression to predicting clinical outcomes in palliative care patients. Dadiomov earned a PharmD from the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy, then completed a pharmacy residency at Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor and a psychiatric pharmacy residency at the University of California, San Diego.

Serghei Mangul, PhD, is a new member of the Titus Family Department of Clinical Pharmacy. He most recently was a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA’s Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biosciences, where he held a Collaboratory Fellowship. His research focuses on developing bioinformatics methods to leverage large-scale, high-throughput genomics datasets to better understand the biology of disease. At UCLA, he led an undergraduate research group on genomic research. He earned his PhD in bioinformatics at Georgia State University and his bachelor’s in applied mathematics at Moldova State University.

Read more on page 6.

Ken S. Wong, PharmD, MPH, is now an associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics.

He previously served as director of health economics and outcomes research, clinical value and evidence at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, where he conducted research on healthcare innovation, real-world databases and value-based healthcare delivery. He was also an associate professor at the Keck Graduate Institute School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

Wong earned a PharmD from the USC School of Pharmacy and an MPH from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Danielle Zammit, PhD, has been appointed an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Health and Economics. She earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the University of Malta, a master’s degree in pharmacology from the University of British Columbia, a master’s degree in economics from USC, and, in 2007, a PhD in pharmaceutical economics and policy from the USC School of Pharmacy.

Since then, Zammit has primarily worked in industry, most recently at Axovant Sciences, in Basel, Switzerland, where her work focused on health economics and outcomes research.

Associate Professor Lisa W. Goldstone officially assumed the post of president of the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists on July 1, 2019. The national position recognizes her significant achievements in the field, which include more than 20 years of clinical experience working with people of all ages who have psychiatric disorders.

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NOVEL FRAMEWORK MEASURES VALUE IN HOSPITAL CARE Experts at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics have formulated a novel framework for measuring nationwide variations in the quality and cost of inpatient care. Their method provides the first-ever practical measure of value in care delivery, according to the study’s lead author, John Romley, associate professor at the USC School of Pharmacy and an economist at the Schaeffer Center.

“Our quantitative measure will allow policymakers to better compare how regions across the U.S. are performing,” Romley says.

To pinpoint the degree to which value varies across the U.S., the researchers analyzed data from more than 33,000 elderly fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries who were admitted with a heart attack to 2,232 hospitals in 2013. They measured the total

number of high-quality stays — defined by a patient’s survival for at least 30 days after admission, along with no unplanned readmission within 30 days of discharge — and measured it against the total cost of treatment. They accounted for condition severity, socioeconomic factors and hospital characteristics.

Among their findings were that hospitals in Miami produced 13 percent fewer high-quality hospital stays than the U.S. average, while hospitals in Everett, Washington, a city 25 miles north of Seattle, performed over 20 percent better than average on value.

Reducing wasteful spending and improving outcomes are key drivers of payment and delivery system reforms implemented by Medicare and other payers in the last few years. The variability in the value of care documented by this study points

to potential opportunities for higher quality, lower costs or both within the healthcare system.

“Our findings point to the need for more research so policymakers can better understand reasons for variation in value and consider more targeted interventions that appropriately incentivize improved performance,” Romley says.

The study was featured in the international journal PLOS One. The Schaeffer Center is a partnership of the USC School of Pharmacy and the USC Price School of Public Policy.

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Recent Awards Padula Honored for Pressure Injury Prevention Research William Padula, assistant professor of health economics, received the 2019 Award for Excellence in Application of Health Economics and Outcomes Research at the Annual International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Awards Program in New Orleans on May 19. The organization honored Padula for his study evaluating the value of hospital resources for effective pressure-injury prevention.

Hospital-acquired pressure injuries are localized skin sores that affect more than 2.5 million individuals, resulting in 60,000 deaths in the U.S. annually, and cost the U.S. healthcare system $25 billion per year. But best practices are time-consuming, complex and come with significant startup costs for the hospital.

Padula’s paper, published in BMJ Quality & Safety, analyzed the cost utility of performing daily follow-up risk assessment for pressure-injury prevention in all patients and in select high-risk cohorts. Based on overall utility gains, they found the most cost-effective strategy was prevention for all patients, regardless of initial risk assessment.

Stimmel Honored as UCSF Distinguished Alumnus of the Year Glen L. Stimmel, associate dean for academic affairs, was named the 2019 University of California, San Francisco, Distinguished Alumnus of the Year. A professor of clinical pharmacy, psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the USC School of Pharmacy and Keck School of Medicine, Stimmel served as interim dean of the School of Pharmacy from 2015 to 2016 and has long been a national voice in expanding the scope of practice for pharmacists, including advocacy for pharmacist prescriptive authority. He is a founding member and past president of the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists and of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP), of which he is also an elected fellow. The author of more than 230 academic articles and textbook chapters, he received the ACCP Clinical Practice Award in 1991, the first Judith Saklad Memorial Lecture Award from the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists (CPNP) in 1998, and the Career Achievement Award from the CPNP in 2016, among other honors.

Two Research Awards for Asatryan Research Assistant Professor Liana Asatryan received a Rose Hills Foundation Innovator Grant for her proposal “Alcohol and Host Microbiome Interactions in Alcohol Consumption Behavior.” She also received funding through the Undergraduate Research Associate Program for 2019–20 for another project on alcohol consumption behaviors.

DOD Grant Awarded to Zhang Yong (Tiger) Zhang, assistant professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences, has been awarded a three-year Career Development Award in the amount of $593,996 from the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs for his project “Developing Novel Immunotherapeutics for Acute Myeloid Leukemia.”

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Baron and Wincor Inducted Into CPhA Hall of Fame Melvin Baron, professor of clinical pharmacy, was inducted into the 2019 California Pharmacists Association (CPhA) Hall of Fame. Michael Wincor, PharmD (1946-2018), associate professor of clinical pharmacy, psychiatry and the behavioral sciences, was recognized posthumously as a 2019 CPhA Hall of Fame inductee.

CPhA CEO Jon Roth (left) and CPhA President Veronica Bandy (right) with Mel Baron (above) and Michael Wincor's daughters Megan and Katie (below)

On the Move Cover Chemistry

Julio Camarero Palao has been appointed the John A. Biles Professor in Pharmaceutical Sciences. He joined the USC School of Pharmacy faculty in 2007. His research interests focus on the development of new bioorganic approaches using protein splicing and synthetic protein chemistry for studying biological processes involved in bacterial pathogenicity and how they can be modulated or inhibited by small molecules.

Wei-Chiang Shen is retiring after serving as a faculty member at the USC School of Pharmacy since 1987. He has been named an emeritus professor. He has published more than 140 papers in the biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences, and serves on the editorial boards of Pharmaceutical Research and The Journal of Drug Targeting. He is co-inventor of 16 issued U.S. patents in drug delivery and a co-author of the textbook Immunology for Pharmacy Students. An elected fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he was the grand prize winner of the Eurand Award for Outstanding Novel Research in Oral Drug Delivery in 2002.

BIOCHEMICAL JOURNAL EXPLORING MOLECULAR MECHANISMS THAT UNDERPIN BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES VOLUME 476 z ISSUE 1 z JANUARY 2019

biochemj.org

Volume 476 z Issue 1 z January 2019

Melissa Durham has been named assistant dean of inclusion and diversity. The school’s efforts in this area are focused on: recruiting a diverse student body through outreach, scholarships and partnerships; creating a pathway to pharmacy and graduate training with programs and activities to attract outstanding K-12 students and undergraduates; and fostering a supportive climate and environment for diversity and inclusion through mentorship, programming, curricula, training and professional development.

BIOCHEMICAL JOURNAL

Daryl Davies has been appointed to the newly created role of associate dean for undergraduate education. He spearheaded the creation of the USC School of Pharmacy’s undergraduate programs — including the bachelor of science in Pharmacology and Drug Development and minor in Science and Management of Biomedical Therapeutics — to better prepare students who are interested in pursuing careers in pharmacy, medicine and other health-related professions. See related story on page 12.

In addition, Davies serves as director of the USC Science, Technology and Research (STAR) program, a cooperative venture in science education between the USC Health Sciences Campus and Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School. He also leads a USC research team working to discover and develop novel therapeutics for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and alcoholism.

Published by Portland Press on behalf of the Biochemical Society

BCJ_476_1_Cover.indd 1-3

Ying Wang has been promoted to director of Professional Experience Programs. The USC School of Pharmacy pioneered experiential learning for Doctor of Pharmacy students in the late 1960s and today remains an innovator in preparing students for pharmacy practice in a wide variety of settings.

The programs include some 300 practice sites and more than 400 volunteer faculty and preceptors.

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Volume 9 Number 44 28 November 2018 Pages 8317–8464

Chemical Science rsc.li/chemical-science

Three major, peerreviewed bioscience journals recently devoted covers to research by USC School of Pharmacy faculty.

ChemBioChem showcased a study on the elucidation of Aspernidgulenes biosynthesis co-authored by Clay Wang, PhD, chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Biochemical Journal featured a project by Professor Julio A. Camarero Palao and colleagues that employs backbonecyclized polypeptides to design new generations of bioimaging tools and drugs that may potentially have fewer side effects than current smallmolecule drugs.

And Chemical Science spotlighted work by a team including Assistant Professor Yong (Tiger) Zhang on using chemoenzymatic synthesis to develop a stable mimic of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), a coenzyme essential to all living cells.

ISSN 2041-6539

EDGE ARTICLE Raymond C. Stevens, Yong Zhang et al.

Facile chemoenzymatic synthesis of a novel stable mimic of NAD+

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S T UDEN T S

Celebration of Success The USC School of Pharmacy marked its 112th commencement on May 10 before an audience of more than 1,900 family, friends, faculty and staff.

Dean Vassilios Papadopoulos presided over the event in the tented Broad Lawn quad, advising graduates — the new pharmacists, pharmacologists, pharmaceutical scientists, health economists and regulatory experts — to consider the incredible heritage of the pharmacy profession while embracing the mission to transform the face of pharmacy.

“You are the future of our profession and, even more, you are the future and our hope for a better healthcare system,” Papadopoulos said.

Featured commencement speaker Leonard D. Schaeffer — the founding chair and CEO of WellPoint (now Anthem) — spoke about the opportunities and challenges ahead for the graduates as they begin their careers in the American healthcare system.

Because of the increasing cost of healthcare, “it’s difficult to reach a political consensus on society’s goals for supporting scientific advancement, expanding access to health insurance and reducing health disparities,” said Schaeffer, who is also chair of the advisory board of the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics and the Judge Robert Maclay Widney Chair at USC. “These challenges are your opportunities.”

2019 COMMENCEMENT: DEGREES CONFERRED

181

2

4

Doctors of Pharmacy

PhDs in Clinical and Experimental Therapeutics

PhDs in Health PhDs in PhDs in Doctors of Economics Molecular Pharmaceutical Regulatory Pharmacology Sciences Science and Toxicology

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3

4

7

38

3

3

Masters of Science in Health Care Decision Analysis

Masters of Science in Management of Drug Development

Masters of Science in Medical Product Quality

He also shared lessons learned firsthand from watching his father, a community pharmacist, interact with his patients. “The role of the pharmacist is much broader than simply selling retail drugs,” Schaeffer said. “It’s about helping people achieve better health.”

PharmD Class of 2019 President Marisa Jones shared memorable moments from her time at the school and encouraged her fellow graduates to pause and enjoy the moment.

“It’s easy to start worrying about the next hurdle, whether it’s studying for the boards or looking for a job,” she said.

“But it’s important to take some time to be proud of what we’ve accomplished.”

Laura Henkhaus, who accepted her PhD in health economics, spoke on behalf of the master’s and PhD graduates.

“Graduates, through successes and setbacks in our careers, let us always remember and value our great power to contribute by helping the people around us beyond the particular ways we have been trained to support patient health,” she said. “Through all the big things you will do, remember your everyday opportunity to help the individual.”

Eight of the 10 new graduates of the school’s undergraduate program in pharmacology and drug development are joining the USC School of Pharmacy PharmD Class of 2023.

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14

2

20

10

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Masters of Science in Molecular Pharmacology and Toxicology

Masters of Science in Pharmaceutical Sciences

Masters of Science in Regulatory Management

Masters of Science in Regulatory Science

Bachelors of Residents Science in Pharmacology and Drug Development

9 Fellows

FACING THE FUTURE TOGETHER Student leaders from across the state assembled at the USC School of Pharmacy for a weekend of learning, networking and exchanging ideas in June. “Pharmacy Leadership Seminar: Facing the Future Together” was made possible by the Margaret and John Biles Leadership Center and organized by third-year PharmD students Trevor Lee and Christina Vu. The first day focused on fostering unity.

Keynote speaker Kenneth Schell, assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Diego, spoke about the industry challenges ahead. Then Vinson Lee, PharmD ’06, principal and founder of PARX Consulting and immediate past president of the California Pharmacists Association, emphasized the importance of unifying the pharmacy profession.

Five student groups took the stage to present projects ranging from a medication therapy management initiative to a legislative advocacy program. Third-year USC PharmD student Karolina Kapustova won first place for her work in empowering pharmacists and pharmacy students to achieve financial freedom.

Day two featured presentations on public speaking by Susie Park, associate dean for student affairs at the USC School of Pharmacy, and the changing profession of pharmacy by Steven Chen, associate dean for clinical affairs at the school.

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Student Spotlights

MICHAEL HSIAO

KRYSTAL McCARTY

AMY NHAM

A PharmD Class of 2021 student and father of a young daughter, Michael Hsiao helped launch the first student-parent support group on campus. The Temple City, California, native shares how he balances school, work and family.

A PharmD Class of 2021 student from Redlands, California, Krystal McCarty is simultaneously pursuing an MS in Healthcare Decision Analysis (HCDA).

Here she explains why she’s pursuing a dual degree and how she landed a bit part as a TV pharmacist.

Born in Southern Vietnam, Amy Nham immigrated to the U.S. with her family at age 6. Here she discusses her unique educational path as a first-generation college student — including being among the first at USC to combine a PharmD with a master of public health degree.

She graduated in May.

What attracted you to the field of pharmacy?

I graduated from California State University, Northridge, with a BA in art and a focus on animation and started my career in the digital entertainment industry. While art is far from easy, I yearned to challenge myself in a more intellectually demanding career.

Why did you choose the USC School of Pharmacy?

USC was my first choice just from its history and reputation alone. What sealed the deal, though, was how friendly and encouraging the staff, faculty and students were.

What motivated you to launch a studentparent support group on campus?

I noticed that there wasn’t a group on campus that focused on student-parents. After Dr. Susie Park expressed that other students were also asking about such a support group, we collaborated and started the group in fall 2018. We encourage our members to bring their children, significant others and parents to our meetings as a way to meet and thank everyone’s support systems.

What advice do you have for other parents in graduate school?

Learn to rely on your support system and ask for help when you get overwhelmed. Whenever I’m struggling, I remind myself that all the hard work and sacrifice is for my wife and daughter.

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How did you become interested in the pharmacy field?

Coming out of undergrad at UCLA, where I majored in biochemistry, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. Pharmacy didn’t appear on my radar until I shadowed a pharmacist and saw firsthand how much our patients relied on my boss for advice on everything, including health insurance, over-the-counter medications and even home-improvement projects.

Why did you decide to pursue the MS in addition to the PharmD? The HCDA program covers multiple fields within industry and managed care I previously knew nothing about. It has been a great supplement to my pharmacy education, helping me dive deeper into understanding the healthcare system and how all of the stakeholders function together.

What’s a fun fact about you that not many people know?

Showtime’s Ray Donovan was filming at the independent pharmacy I used to work at and they needed a replacement to play a pharmacist ASAP. Before I knew it, I was getting mic’d up and practicing my three lines. You can find me in season five — but don’t judge my patient counseling from the clip. I wasn’t allowed to change the lines!

What attracted you to pharmacy and USC? I set my eyes on a career in health during high school and homed in on pharmacy because I want to interact directly with patients. The School of Pharmacy’s commitment to serving the community aligns with my own.

What motivated you to earn a dual degree?

While at the school, I’ve studied abroad twice — first in London with the USC Global Health and Social Medicine program and then on a scholarship to Shanghai for a globalization class. These experiences opened my eyes to how social determinants have affected my own family, and sparked my interest in public health.

What’s next in your journey?

I’m moving to Navajo County in Arizona for a residency with the Indian Health Service, a federal program that assists American Indians and Alaska Natives. They have so many barriers in terms of accessing good healthcare. You really have to assess each patient holistically. After that, I plan to work as an ambulatory care pharmacist — potentially in a public health organization.

I want to make a big impact.

A Week in the Life

Karolina Kapustova, PharmD Class of 2021, shows prospective applicants what a typical week is like as a student at the USC School of Pharmacy.

RxPride, the school’s first affinity group, held a special event to celebrate the Holi Festival of Colors and the beginning of spring.

Regulatory and quality sciences undergraduate researchers Kaitlyn Park, Jacqueline Chen and Annie Ly earned top honors at the USC Undergraduate Symposium for their research on underrepresented populations in clinical trials.

Team USC — represented by PharmD students Lexi Lang, Allison Hy, Ana Barron, Brian Lee and Tim Dang — took home first place in the California Pharmacists Association (CPhA) Student Quiz Bowl in April at Western Pharmacy Exchange. USC School of Pharmacy students competed against 12 other schools at the annual CPhA event.

A LUMNI

Check out her video: pharmacyschool. usc.edu/students

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PHOTO SHOP Do you recognize any of these students in the lobby of the John Stauffer Pharmaceutical Sciences Center in this photo from the 1970s? Send your comments to pharmcom@usc.edu.

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NURTURING AND EMPOWERING

STUDENTS The school is creating a dynamic, new student-centered facility in Seaver Hall that will consolidate student services and provide a the student community.

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USC SCHOOL OF PHARMACY - SRH 4TH FL | 1969 ZONAL AVE. LOS ANGELES, CA PG 4

During my years at the School of Pharmacy, one of the areas I visited quite frequently for relaxation was the recreation room on the ground floor of Seaver Science building. Mona and I are proud to fund the new recreation room in the Biles Center. I am hoping that this room will provide the students a place to rest and relax in between classes and during exams.�

Sohail Masood, PharmD ’88, who along with his wife, Mona, made a $400,000 gift to the project

Support USC School of Pharmacy students and invest in their future. Give now online at pharmacyschool.usc.edu/giving/making-a-gift

MARCH.05.2019

dedicated gathering space for

Nonprofit Organization US Postage Paid University of Southern California USC School of Pharmacy Health Sciences Campus University of Southern California 1985 Zonal Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90089-9121

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The Student Diversity Committee is working to create a more dynamic sense of community at the school. Together with Rx Pride, it hosted an LGBTQ+ health and cultural competency training event last spring.