Promoting excellence in pharmacy research
Aug 16, 2007 - 4:00:00 AM
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At this time it is fundamental that we continue to encourage the best pharmacists and pharmacy graduates to continue into postgraduate research and training, ensuring the brightest possible future for the profession.
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By University of Nottingham,
[RxPG] The University of Nottinghams School of Pharmacy has been singled out by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) to help promote the next generation of research talent.
The School of Pharmacy will host an Academic Excellence Award in 2008 a prestigious programme of PhD studentships offered by the RPSGB.
Nottingham was one of only two UK institutions selected from among 23 applicants, after a judging process involving a panel of distinguished pharmacy academics.
The RPSGB Academic Excellence Awards are designed to increase the number of pharmacists who enter and stay in academia as a career by providing funding to enable exceptional pharmacists and pharmacy graduates to undertake PhD training. The scheme promotes the important role played by members of the academic workforce in developing and leading the profession of pharmacy.
Professor Saul Tendler, Head of the School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham, said: I was thrilled to learn that we have been successful in this prestigious competition.
Winning such an award adds to our internationally-leading research base and further boosts our buoyant postgraduate research activities. At the same time the award pleasingly provides us with strong and continued links with the RPSGB.
The University will host an award for research with the title Selective inhibitors for nuclear receptors: an alternative to anti-hormone therapies, supervised by Professor David Heery. This work investigates the mechanisms by which genes are switched on or off in healthy or diseased human cells.
One family of gene regulators being studied are the steroid receptors, which are switched on or activated when they bind hormones such as oestrogen or androgens. The activated receptors bind other proteins termed coactivators, which are required to switch on genes. The project will investigate how short sequences in the coactivator proteins (termed LXXLL motifs) facilitate these interactions.
Steroid receptors are important drug targets in breast and prostate cancers, which are hormone-dependent tumours. Drugs known as anti-hormones can be effective in treating and preventing these diseases. Anti-hormones work by competing with normal oestrogens or androgens to bind the steroid receptors, thus blocking their function.
However, as some tumours can develop resistance to these drugs, there is a need for alternative therapies. A long-term goal of the Nottingham research is to develop novel chemical inhibitors of steroid receptors and the RPSGB Academic Excellence award 2008 will make an important contribution to ongoing research in this area.
The award is only the latest accolade for the highly-rated School of Pharmacy. In April this year the School won a Queens Award for Enterprise in the category of Innovation.
Cardiff University was the other institution to be successful in the Academic Excellence Awards for 2008.
Ann Lewis, RPSGB Secretary and Registrar, and Chair of the Academic Excellence Awards Panel, said: Pharmacy is entering a period of great change and development.
At this time it is fundamental that we continue to encourage the best pharmacists and pharmacy graduates to continue into postgraduate research and training, ensuring the brightest possible future for the profession.
The two successful schools were selected, in part, for the excellent research environment and supervisory experience they will provide to researchers choosing an academic career path.
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