Attendees at the 18th annual International Conference on the Science of Botanicals had more than 75 presentations from which to choose, on topics ranging from the history of cannabis as medicine to dietary supplements’ effect on the liver. UM photo by Whitney Tarpy

OXFORD, Miss. – Scientists and visitors from around the globe gathered in Oxford this week (April 9-12) for the 18th annual International Conference on the Science of Botanicals.

Organized and hosted by the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy, the conference welcomed 280 registrants from universities, government and business institutions who explored the topic of synergy between natural products and human health. Participants discussed current research topics related to natural products research, development, safety, quality and regulations.

“With the NCNPR being internationally known for its botanical products expertise, the conference is a great opportunity to bring natural products experts to Oxford,” said Ikhlas Khan, NCNPR director. “ICSB continues to be instrumental in facilitating conversation related to botanicals among scientists and industry leaders.”

Steven Tave, director of the Office of Dietary Supplement Programs at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, served as a special guest speaker at the conference’s opening session. John Finley, the national program leader for human nutrition at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, followed Tave with the keynote address.

Numerous internationally recognized experts and researchers in the field of botanicals presented at the conference, including attendees from Australia, Central America and Africa, as well as representatives from U.S. Pharmacopeia, Procter & Gamble, DuPont and Waters Corp.

“Over the past 18 years, this conference has really evolved into a symposium on basic medical research and botanicals,” said Joseph Betz, director of the Dietary Supplements Methods and Reference Materials Program at the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements. “The scope has increased, the quality of presentations from international researchers has increased, the distance people are willing to travel has increased, so it’s just gotten better every year.”

Steven Tave, director of the FDA Office of Dietary Supplement Programs, speaks during the conference’s opening session. UM photo by Whitney Tarpy

Attendees had a chance to socialize and explore the Ole Miss campus and Oxford community. Events included dinner each evening with different local and international cuisines, an afternoon picnic with competitive field games and tours of NCNPR facilities and the School of Pharmacy’s medicinal plant garden.

“This is my favorite conference,” said Wendy Applequist from the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. “It has a diverse attendance that keeps it interesting, but it’s small enough that you can see most of the talks that interest you and meet most of the people you’d like to meet. It’s simultaneously international and intimate.”

The National Center for Natural Products Research was founded in 1995 to research, develop and commercialize potentially useful natural products. NCNPR collaborates with academia, government and the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries to create natural products that can be used to improve human health and agriculture as crops, pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements and agrochemicals.

For more information on programs at NCNPR, visit http://pharmacy.olemiss.edu/ncnpr/.

Regan Tyler

OXFORD, Miss. – Regan Tyler, a third-year student at the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy, was elected as Phi Lambda Sigma’s speaker of the house during the organization’s national meeting, held in conjunction with the American Pharmacists Association annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.

Phi Lambda Sigma is a pharmacy leadership society that aims to develop leadership qualities among student pharmacists to strengthen the future of the pharmacy profession.

In Tyler’s new role on the Executive Committee, she will control the annual PLS House of Delegates meeting, serve as a voice for student pharmacists on the committee during monthly conferences and attend the annual Executive Committee retreat in June to discuss its mission for the upcoming year.

“Honestly, I was in shock,” Tyler said of being elected. “It really did not hit me that I had been elected until the current speaker of the house asked me to return to the podium to dismiss the House of Delegates as my first ‘act of duty.'”

A native of Collierville, Tennessee, and president of the Ole Miss pharmacy student body, Tyler knew she wanted to serve PLS at the national level after the organization provided her with many opportunities to grow as a leader. She noted that attending the organization’s retreats helped her fine-tune her public speaking and learn more about her leadership style.

As she approaches her final year of pharmacy school, Tyler plans to pursue a career in the pharmaceutical industry as a medical science liaison or the medical information field. She believes her role as speaker will help her achieve her professional goals as she meets other leaders in the pharmacy profession.

“Regan is very deserving of this national recognition and responsibility,” said David D. Allen, dean of the School of Pharmacy. “She does a wonderful job leading as student body president, and I’m excited to see how she will impact the future of pharmacy.”

Ole Miss is actively involved in PLS. Fourth-year student pharmacist Kathy Lee Barrack serves as president of the local chapter, making her a House of Delegates member, and School of Pharmacy alumna Jillian Foster is the organization’s parliamentarian.

The school’s chapter also initiates between 20 and 30 students and several faculty members each spring.

The UM School of Pharmacy. Photo by Robert Jordan/Ole Miss Communications

OXFORD, Miss. – Five University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy students each presented their own research at the recent American Pharmacists Association annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.

The students are Anna Crider, Erin Hoevelmann, Yiran Rong, Victoria Miller and Kelsey Raymer.

“This was an excellent opportunity for these students to share their work at a national level,” said David D. Allen, dean of the School of Pharmacy. “To have five of our students presenting at the APhA annual meeting is a testament to our student body’s dedication to making a positive impact on patients and the profession.”

Crider, a second-year student from Brentwood, Tennessee, presented her analysis of whether pharmacists need more education regarding the treatment and care of children with ADHD. She plans to work as a clinical inpatient pharmacist after graduation and hopes that her research will improve the care of children with ADHD.

“Presenting at this conference helped to further my knowledge of opportunities within the profession,” Crider said.

A second-year student from St. Louis, Hoevelmann presented her survey results of pharmacists’ willingness to offer rapid diagnostic testing in the community pharmacy setting. She first presented this project in March 2017 as her thesis for the university’s Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College.

“I was very excited to be able to present this work to a national audience,” Hoevelmann said. “This my first experience with research, and it has offered me so many opportunities, even a year later.”

Pharmacy administration graduate student Yiran Rong presented a research poster that examined community pharmacists’ perceptions on implementing a weight management program in their practice settings.

“It was really helpful for me to practice explaining a study in a short amount of time,” Rong said. “I met pharmacists, faculty and researchers who shared their ideas about real-world practice from different angles, which were very valuable and illuminating.”

Second-year student Miller’s work identified a lack of medication knowledge among many incoming college students and how pharmacists can provide education about medicines and health management to that age group. The Hartselle, Alabama, native hopes to pursue a residency and a career in hospital pharmacy upon obtaining her Pharm.D.

“Presenting at the APhA annual meeting allowed me to network with other professionals and show them my passion for patient care,” Miller said. “Completing this project has helped me develop research skills, which will be extremely valuable in a residency program and in my future career.”

Raymer, a third-year student from Hendersonville, Tennessee, presented on the differences in how pharmacy managers and pharmacy staff members impact and manage their own work environments.

“I am absolutely honored that my research was chosen for a podium presentation at the APhA annual meeting,” Raymer said. “This presentation helped me to build connections with pharmacists who have similar interests and big ideas for the future of pharmacy.”

Purnendu Sharma (left), a UM graduate student in pharmaceutics, discusses his research with S. Narasimha Murthy, his adviser. UM photo by Sydney Slotkin DuPriest

OXFORD, Miss. – Purnendu Sharma, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery, received an Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation Young Investigator Scholarship for his research on the natural product resiniferatoxin, or RTX.

Sharma’s project, titled “Effect of Resiniferatoxin, a TrpV1 Receptor Agonist on Neuronal Cells and evaluating it In vitro Neurotrophic Activity for Neurodegenerative Disorders,” showed the potential of RTX to help in the treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

ADDF is one of the most prominent nonprofit organizations in the world that provides funding to scientists conducting innovative Alzheimer’s disease drug research. The scholarship allowed Sharma, originally from Hyderabad, India, to attend ADDF’s 12th annual Drug Discovery for Neurodegeneration Conference in Washington, D.C., in February and present his research poster.

“This award is a great recognition,” Sharma said. “Being able to present to and interact with experts on this subject and receive feedback will have a great impact on this research and my career.”

Sharma works under the supervision of S. Narasimha Murthy, professor of pharmaceutics in the School of Pharmacy. He also had collaborative support from Babu L. Tekwani, principal scientist in the National Center for Natural Products Research, as RTX is a chemical found in a cactus-like plant in Morocco and Nigeria.

“Purnendu is a highly-focused and hard-working student,” Murthy said. “He was very deserving of this award for his novel findings on neurotrophic activity of nanoformulations of resiniferatoxin. I am confident that Purnendu will have a successful career as a pharmaceutical scientist.”

Sharma’s work on other projects, including evaluating the microstructure of topical creams, has been recognized by the FDA and American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, Murthy added.

UM alumnus Blake Thompson (left) surprises student pharmacist Lee Jennings by covering a semester of his tuition during the School of Pharmacy’s annual Hartman Lecture. Jennings was the only student to take Thompson’s challenge to deliver a brief speech on his career goals. Photo by Marlee Crawford/Ole Miss Communications

OXFORD, Miss. – Blake Thompson, the 2018 Hartman lecturer for the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy, surprised a crowd of student pharmacists, faculty, friends and family at the March 9 lecture by offering to cover a semester’s worth of tuition for one student.

Thompson, a UM alumnus who is vice president for government affairs at Ohio State University, delivered a lecture focused on the importance of taking career risks. To demonstrate, he asked any student to come onstage and speak to the nearly-full Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts about his or her own career goals.

“If you would consider the idea of coming up here with me right now and giving an impromptu speech risky, then I want you to get ready,” he said, before inviting someone to step out from the audience and join him on stage.

However, when Lee Jennings, a second-year student from Hattiesburg, volunteered and made his way to the stage, instead of asking Jennings about his career plans, Thompson remarked on the risk Jennings had taken.

“Lee, because you took a risk and volunteered, you now have your spring semester’s tuition covered,” Thompson said, to the audience’s applause. “It’s taken care of. Congratulations!”

Before he finished, Thompson gave Jennings one condition: that he do the same for another student pharmacist someday.

Thompson illustrated the importance of this condition by quoting former Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes, saying “You can never pay it back, but you can pay it forward.”

Jennings said he was initially “stunned,” but after registering Thompson’s words, felt extremely grateful, noting that the scholarship will significantly defray his student loan burden.

He also expressed gratitude to Thompson for the lesson he imparted.

“I want to own a pharmacy one day, and I know that buying or building a pharmacy is a major risk,” Jennings said. “This experience taught me that reward doesn’t come without a risk.

“As I move forward in my career and in my life, I hope to keep the idea of taking a risk in mind when faced with tough decisions.”

Jennings hopes to fulfill his promise to Thompson and pay his good fortune forward not only for another student pharmacist in the future, but also in the community where he will someday practice his profession.

“This is an incredible gesture and illustration for our student pharmacists,” said David D. Allen, dean of the School of Pharmacy. “Taking innovative risks is how we as pharmacists can improve health care.

“By ‘paying it forward,’ Blake demonstrated the giving spirit that pharmacists should bring to their work, whether they are giving their resources, their time or their expertise.”

Thompson credited his time at Ole Miss for teaching him the importance of risk-taking that he sought to convey with the lecture.

“Those times when I have done something that was uncomfortable or that I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to do, that is when I have seen my greatest growth,” Thompson said.

For more information on pharmacy education at Ole Miss, go to http://pharmacy.olemiss.edu/.