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College of Pharmacy

2017 News Archive

Maybe you’re not allergic

A team of undergraduates mentored by associate professor of pharmacy Brandon Bookstaver has developed a new protocol being used at Palmetto Health Richland Hospital to determine if hospitalized patients who report having a penicillin allergy, in fact, are allergic.

Life in the Rx Lane

Most incoming pharmacy students tend to think that their upcoming courses will be the most challenging part of pharmacy school. However, they forget about all the "extras" that come with being a pharmacy student.

A plague upon us

The toll of America’s opioid epidemic is tragic, but UofSC researchers are engaged in the struggle, finding tools that could help turn the tide.

My Pharmacy Purpose and Passion

Tyler Wagner discovered his passion in the College of Pharmacy and has been actively learning about and researching infectious disease since he stepped foot on campus.

Making the pieces fit

Julie Ann Justo, assistant professor of clinical pharmacy, is a 2017 Clinical Teaching Award winner. Her demanding but fun classes are structured to emphasize patient participation and produce excellent providers.

UofSC honors Justo with clinical practice teaching award

Throughout pharmacy school, Julie Justo pictured herself as a hospital-based pharmacist caring for patients. But during her first year of residency training, she gave a talk to pharmacy students about how bacteria invade the immune system.

Collaboration central

USC's neuroscience retreat provides a forum for researchers from across the university, including the College of Pharmacy, to connect and collaborate.

Room to breathe

The first year of pharmacy school was supposed to be the hard year, adjusting to the rigorous demands of a professional program. For Sarah Ostenfeld, the biggest challenge of pharmacy school came wrapped in a NICU blanket in September 2015 in her third year of the program.

Career evolution

Brian O'Quinn jokes that he has one more year to figure out what he wants to do when he grows up. Soon he will begin a post-graduate pharmacy residency at the William Jennings Bryan Dorn VA Medical Center, the latest twist in a professional life that has evolved from high school science teacher to pharmacist.

A Dream Deferred...and Realized

Growing up in Jamaica, Yorika Hammett's grandmother would send her into the woods to gather plants to treat her high blood pressure. Seeing how those natural remedies helped her sparked Hammett's interest in pharmacy, which grew in high school as she saw how people responded to the local pharmacist.

The road less traveled

Many paths would have been easier than pharmacy school for Zhengguan Yang, a Chinese native and the second oldest student in the 2017 graduating class. But still he took on the challenge of entering a professional degree program in a foreign language with students one-half his age.

Seeing the whole patient

Because of her outstanding record of pharmacy and public health-related scholarship and service, fourth-year student Liz Rogers was recently given the United State Public Health Service's Excellence in Public Health Pharmacy Award, becoming the college's first recipient of this national award.

Riding to the top

Bailey Mierzejewski stays on top of her studies no matter where collegiate equestrian competition takes her. Because of the second-year Pharm.D. student's dedication to academics and the show ring, she was named SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year for a second straight season.

Rx road trip

When a trio of fourth-year USC pharmacy students sought out the Palmetto Poison Center practice rotation, they had no idea the experience would lead them on a monthlong journey across the state. But for Josh Agbunag, Beth Michaels and Jason Lockhart, talking to senior citizens in three low-income communities and stepping inside all 70 of South Carolina’s hospitals gave them a first-hand look at the state’s health disparities and how they could improve the state’s health as pharmacists.

Xu to explore novel nanoparticle for Alzheimer's disease with $1.5M grant

Associate professor Peisheng Xu was recently awarded a five-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health to support the development of targeted therapy for Alzheimer’s disease.

Looking for the perfect match

While her friends pretended to be teachers or doctors, Ohood Alshareef preferred to line up empty pill bottles and play pharmacist.

COP students advance to national ACCP Clinical Research Challenge competition

Congratulations to Rebekah Crandall, Yesenia Avalos and Kimberly Grubbs, a team of second-year professional students who recently won the USC campus’s ACCP Clinical Research Challenge competition and will represent the College in ACCP’s national competition.

Behind the prescription

Chuck Hennes and fourth-year Pharm.D. student Paul Philavong are two of a number of undergraduate and Pharm.D. students that Eugenia Broude and her colleagues at the college's SmartState Center for Translational Cancer Therapeutics have nurtured, creating rare opportunities for non-graduate-level students to make meaningful research contributions.

No Limits

When Donna Walker '79 was asked to attend a regional student leadership meeting in Memphis as a first-year pharmacy student, she had no idea how saying yes to that opportunity would shape her career.

U of SC researchers discover new subtype of cervical cancer

Scientists from the College of Pharmacy and School of Medicine have identified a new subtype of cervical cancer that may explain why one third of cervical cancer patients do not respond to standard treatment.

SC Commission on Higher Education approves College of Pharmacy as independent program

The South Carolina Commission on Higher Education voted Thursday to approve the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy's return to its independent legacy program.

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.