URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Fall_2018_Melissa-McCarthy

patients around the country to gain insights into what therapies are working and whether one medication may be more effective than another. “We’re also investing in precision medicine,” Larrat says. “In the future, we’ll be able to create medicines based on your genetic makeup that will work better than taking a cookie cutter approach. We don’t look at your genetic makeup now; we just give you a tablet and hope it goes down and does the trick. But if we account for your genes and lifestyle, we can better tailor medicines that will work better for individuals.” Yet, as all of these efforts continue and the college breaks into the top 11 in the nation in federal research grant funding, the Natural Products Research Group continues to garner the most attention. “Our strength is that we are able to find molecules that can solve problems for biologists, pharmaceutical companies and food companies.” - David Rowley

David Rowley Professor Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

than $50 million in additional funding has followed to create core research facilities, train young scientists and advance the state’s biomedical research agenda. “The core laboratory is filled with instrumentation that is shared by biomedical researchers throughout the state,” says Larrat. “We can synthesize medicinals from chemicals to create drug products, perform toxicology tests to determine if there are any negative effects of particular compounds, and we conduct considerable biologic analyses looking at the DNA of whatever organism we’re working with.” Neuroscience research also is growing at the College of Pharmacy through the University’s George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience, established five years ago. Faculty members are studying such subjects as pharmaceutical treatments for neurological disorders, environmental risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease, and the underlying reasons for the accumulation of the protein that causes Alzheimer’s. Researchers from private drug development companies share space at the college in public-private neuroscience research collaborations. As all of these efforts continue, the college is also investing in emerging disciplines. As part of the University’s Big Data Initiative, several pharmacy faculty members are already mining data from millions of

Hang Ma Research Associate Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences