OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy is well-represented within the Mississippi College of Clinical Pharmacy, as four UM faculty members have been elected as officers of the state chapter of American College of Clinical Pharmacy.

Seena Haines, Katie Barber, Jamie Wagner and Melissa Reilly, all with faculty appointments in the school’s Department of Pharmacy Practice, will serve as MCCP officers during 2018.

Haines, chair of the pharmacy practice department, is the organization’s president. Barber, assistant professor, is president-elect, while Wagner and Reilly, both clinical assistant professors, were named treasurer and secretary, respectively.

“I hope to provide members of MCCP an association home where they can network with colleagues and draw upon similar interests to help advance clinical practice in our state,” Haines said. “Our programming efforts will target our students, residents and the diverse practice experiences of our members.”

In an effort to fulfill ACCP’s and MCCP’s joint mission of promoting patient care that optimizes medication therapy and promotes health, wellness and disease prevention, Haines hopes to provide MCCP members with timely and relevant content that can support their work with patients and diverse learners.

“It’s an exciting time to be leading this organization,” Haines said. “We will be examining the evolving health care needs of the citizens of Mississippi and direct patient-care opportunities through comprehensive, cost effective and high-quality care.”

“The School of Pharmacy is fortunate to benefit from the expertise of these committed faculty members, and I know they will serve MCCP well,” said David D. Allen, Ole Miss pharmacy dean. “They are improving health care in our state from a multifaceted and experienced point of view.”

OXFORD, Miss. – Erin Holmes, associate professor of pharmacy administration at the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy, will be inducted as a fellow of the American Pharmacists Association at the organization’s annual meeting March 16-19 in Nashville, Tennessee.

“When I think of those who are current APhA fellows and those who are being inducted in my cohort, I am absolutely humbled,” Holmes said. “This is an incredible honor, and I am grateful to those who nominated and supported me.”

APhA is the largest association of pharmacists in the country and has a mission of “empower(ing) its members to improve medication use and advance patient care.” Fellows of the association must display a history of exemplary service and achievement in the pharmacy profession for at least 10 years.

Holmes first attended one of the association’s annual meetings as a student pharmacist in 2001. She later found mentors and served as an officer within the organization.

“I hope that being a fellow will provide an outlet for me to mentor pharmacy and graduate students to help them grow in their profession,” Holmes said. “Through APhA, I have learned the value of networking and collaborating with others, and I want to pass those values on to students as well. I am indebted to the mentors who helped shaped my career.”

John Bentley, chair of the Department of Pharmacy Administration and one of Holmes’ nominators for the award, called her record of professional service and caliber of research and teaching “simply outstanding.”

“Dr. Holmes provides countless hours of her time helping others, including assisting and advising student organizations and mentoring pharmacy students and graduate students,” Bentley said. “Her dedication to students and their welfare is indeed admirable.”

Another of Holmes’ nominations for the award, written by pharmacy administration professor Alicia Bouldin, spoke to Holmes’ “can-do” attitude that encourages those around her.

“Whatever is asked of her, she freely and cheerfully puts her back, heart and mind into accomplishing in good time and in excellent order,” Bouldin said.

Holmes has also won the School of Pharmacy’s Faculty Service Award and twice won its Distinguished Teaching Scholar award.

“This is a tremendous and very well-deserved honor for Erin,” said David D. Allen, Ole Miss pharmacy dean. “Her accomplishments in the school and the profession demonstrate a deep dedication to the well-being of students and patients.”

OXFORD, Miss. – Frank Gilmore, former chair and professor emeritus in the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy’s Department of BioMolecular Sciences, died Feb. 14 after a lengthy battle with lymphoma.

A visitation for Gilmore is scheduled for 9:30-11 a.m. Saturday (Feb. 24) at Coleman Funeral Home of Oxford, where a celebration of his life will immediately follow.

Gilmore is remembered as a pragmatic and honest leader, known for his integrity and willingness to help others. He came to the School of Pharmacy as an assistant professor of pharmaceutical chemistry in 1967 and became the chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, later renamed to medicinal chemistry, only two years later. He served the department as chair from 1969 to 1979 and again in 1988-1993.

“I think what most distinguished my father was his honesty, his hard work and his generosity,” said Gilmore’s son, Paul. “He truly enjoyed his time at the School of Pharmacy. He was always ready to share any accomplishments with others and he truly put his students above all else.

“I think the impact he had was due to the pleasure he took in helping others, whether in the lab, helping with a building project or cutting firewood for someone. If anything, he was generous with his time and energy to a fault.”

Gilmore’s life began in the Lauderdale County community of Bailey, where he was born in 1935. His son credits his father’s upbringing in the Depression-era South with imparting in him a sense of determination and work ethic.

He graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1957 and earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1961. Following his doctorate, he served in the U.S. Army, where he met and married his wife, Ann.

After finishing his military service as a captain, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Florida State University and worked at Midwest Research Institute in Kansas City before coming to the School of Pharmacy in 1967. During his time at the school, he won its Teacher of the Year award twice.

John Williamson, professor emeritus of medicinal chemistry and former colleague of Gilmore, remembers him as “the conscience of the school.”

“No one would disagree that he had the highest level of integrity of all of us,” Williamson said. “Frank was always the one to point out right from wrong, regardless of internal politics. I am blessed to have been his friend and to have seen what the man with the most integrity is actually like.”

As a scientist, he pioneered explorations in peptidomimetics – a term that Williamson credits Gilmore with coining – as that study was just beginning to emerge, and conducted research in phosphorus chemistry and immunology.

Gilmore went on to become vice president for academic affairs at West Virginia University Institute of Technology before finishing his career as chancellor of Montana Tech at the University of Montana from 1998 to 2011. After retirement, Gilmore and his wife remained part-time residents of Oxford, spending the rest of their time at their home in Montana.

“Dr. Gilmore was a remarkable mentor and colleague who had a great impact on our school and those lucky enough to know him,” said David D. Allen, dean of the School of Pharmacy. “He will be sincerely missed.”

He is survived by his wife, Ann; children Kristin Newman and Paul Gilmore; three grandchildren; and his loving, extended family. 

OXFORD, Miss. – Ikhlas Khan, director of the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy, is the winner of AOAC International’s 2018 Harvey W. Wiley Award, which recognizes lifetime scientific achievement.

AOAC International develops global quality standards for microbiological and chemical materials, ranging from food to pharmaceuticals in an effort to ensure public health. Khan, who has been with the university since 1992 and directed the natural products center since 2017, has spent much of his career developing standards for dietary supplements.

“I’m very pleased to receive this award,” Khan said. “AOAC is the top organization for chemical standards, and I appreciate this recognition of my work in this area.”

As part of the honor, Khan will deliver the Wiley Award address and chair the Wiley Award Symposium at AOAC’s annual meeting in August in Toronto.

The Harvey W. Wiley Award has been given to one person a year since 1957, with past recipients including scientists from government, industry and academic institutions from around the world.

OXFORD, Miss. – As technological advances continue to rapidly turn yesterday’s fiction into today’s facts, a University of Mississippi alumnus finds himself at the forefront of the burgeoning virtual and augmented reality revolution.

Sylvester “Sly” Lee, co-founder of Emerge Inc., an independent technology company in Los Angeles, recently made Forbes magazine’s annual “30 Under 30” list of rising entrepreneurs in manufacturing and industry.

The 28-year-old Oxford native and his two co-founders have invented a hardware and software device that enables users to feel virtual objects in augmented reality without the need for wearables, controllers or gloves. It uses a proprietary technology to create precise force fields mid-air, allowing users to feel shapes, volumes and even textures.

“The Forbes honor came as a huge surprise to me,” said Lee, who earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy in 2010 and a master’s degree in environmental toxicology in 2012, both from UM. “My co-founders, Isaac Castro of Spain and Mauricio Teran of Ecuador, and the rest of our team celebrate this recognition together.”

Lee’s career trajectory from pharmacist to marine scientist to serial entrepreneur began while at Ole Miss. He credits professors Marc Slattery and Deborah Gochfeld with inspiring critical thinking through his involvement in their underwater drug discovery research.

Slattery remembers Lee being an exceptional student who was interested in the bigger picture.

“It was immediately clear that research was his passion,” said Slattery, a professor of biomolecular sciences. “Sly came aboard as we started into our climate change research and comparative environmental physiology. He was a great help in lab and field work, and always happy to discuss recent papers and/or data.”

As part of their ongoing search for pharmaceutical compounds from the ocean, Lee went on a trip to the coral reefs of the Bahamas.

“My job was to scuba dive, study and use cutting-edge technologies to gain insights and knowledge into one of the least-understood ecosystems in the world,” he said. “That experience made a deep impression upon me and set me on my future career path.”

In the environmental toxicology graduate program, Lee’s excitement and enthusiasm were contagious, to the extent that his younger brother also came to do research in the lab as an undergraduate.

“Sly entirely immersed himself in his passion for the sea,” said Gochfeld, principal scientist in UM’s National Center for Natural Products Research. “He was a teaching assistant and through his passion for understanding and conserving the ocean, he served as a great role model for students and our lab in general.

“He was an important contributor to several of our NSF- and NOAA-funded research projects on climate change and marine diseases.”

Before co-founding his company, Lee was part of a 3-D mapping project at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the first project in the world to combine photogrammetry, lidar – a system that uses laser pulses to measure distances – and sonar to produce a 3-D map of the U.S.S. Arizona, the famed battleship that sank during the Japanese attack that drew the United States into World War II.

Following his work in Hawaii, Lee traveled around the world expanding what he learned in that project to coral reef ecosystems. He eventually started The Hydrous, a nonprofit that pioneered a method to 3-D capture coral reefs in high resolution using photogrammetry. The group’s methods have been adopted by more than 20 academic institutions and more than 10 nongovernmental organizations around the world.

The Hydrous’ work has been featured in WIRED Magazine, TED and Fast Company. It is supported by Lenovo, the Smithsonian Institution and Google Expeditions. For more visit https://www.thehydro.us/.

In 2015 Lee attended Singularity University’s Global Solutions Program, which convenes a talented group of scientists, technologists, designers, entrepreneurs and others with potential to tackle global grand challenges.

Founded in 2008 in Silicon Valley, Singularity University is a California think tank that offers educational programs and a business incubator. Its stated aim is to “educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges.”

“That program profoundly changed me,” Lee said. “I learned five years’ worth of material in those 10 weeks. That’s also where I met my co-founders who shared my same passion for technology and creating the next level of human communication.”

Compiled by Forbes since 2011, “30 Under 30” is published annually to recognize creative and visionary business leaders across 20 different industries. In 2016, Patrick Woodyard, a 2010 UM graduate, was included on the prestigious list.

To view Lee’s profile in Forbes magazine, visit https://www.forbes.com/30-under-30/2018/.