In memory of Professor William I. Higuchi (1931–2024)

Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences · 2025-07-25

Association of Cocurricular Activities to ACPE Standard #3 Elements by Student-Reported Competencies

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education · 2025-03-07

OBJECTIVE: To assess the influence of required cocurricular activities on Accreditation Council of Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards 2016: Standard #3 Elements-Approach to Practice and Care competencies using year-end student surveys. METHODS: Year-end surveys of first year pharmacy (P1) to fourth pharmacy year (P4) students compared student self-assessments of their aptitude for each Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education 2013 outcomes in ACPE Standard #3 from a 3 year period when cocurricular activities were voluntary (volunteer period) and a 3 year period when a unique cocurricular activity was required each semester without academic credit (required period). A total of 294 unique cocurricular activities were offered during the required period. t tests and analysis of variance were used to compare responses across periods within each pharmacy year and academic year. RESULTS: During the volunteer period, 589 student survey responses were collected (81.7% response rate), compared to 433 (79.7%) engaging in cocurricular activities (required period). The mean age of the students in both periods was 24.1 years (SD 4.3), 61.0% were female, and 49.2% had prior degrees. Students participated in 283 distinct cocurricular activities. Student self-assessment across all Standard #3 elements improved each year. The aggregate improvement range across P1 to P4 years was 25.1% to 74.4% (p <.05 for each element). The most significant improvement was observed in Domain 3.1, Problem-Solving. The greatest increase occurred during the P1 year, followed by a leveling off across the third year pharmacy to P4 years. CONCLUSION: Student-reported assessment indicates that providing required cocurricular opportunities across all professional years positively influences student perceptions of competency in ACPE Standard #3 Approach to Practice and Care Elements.

Co-formulation of the rF1V plague vaccine with depot-formulated cytokines enhances immunogenicity and efficacy to elicit protective responses against aerosol challenge in mice

Frontiers in Immunology · 2024 · 3 citations

• Immunology
• Medicine
• Virology

This study evaluated a depot-formulated cytokine-based adjuvant to improve the efficacy of the recombinant F1V (rF1V) plague vaccine and examined the protective response following aerosol challenge in a murine model. The results of this study showed that co-formulation of the Alhydrogel-adsorbed rF1V plague fusion vaccine with the depot-formulated cytokines recombinant human interleukin 2 (rhuIL-2) and/or recombinant murine granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (rmGM-CSF) significantly enhances immunogenicity and significant protection at lower antigen doses against a lethal aerosol challenge. These results provide additional support for the co-application of the depot-formulated IL-2 and/or GM-CSF cytokines to enhance vaccine efficacy.

First Year Free: A Novel Program to Enhance Diversity and Affordability in PharmD Education

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education · 2023-08-01

Nationally, applications and enrollments for colleges/school of pharmacy have been on a steady decline for several years. At the same time, the cost of pharmacy education continues rising. This is a barrier for many to enter the profession. Locally, entering class sizes at the University of Utah College of Pharmacy (COP) have decreased leading to sustainability concerns. Additionally, with a renewed focus on diversity and inclusion, the COP is seeking ways of marketing to and admitting students from a variety of backgrounds into the program.

Validation of a Dendritic Cell and CD4+ T Cell Restimulation Assay Contributing to the Immunogenicity Risk Evaluation of Biotherapeutics

Pharmaceutics · 2022 · 27 citations

• Medicine
• Immunology
• Pharmacology

Immunogenicity, defined as the ability to provoke an immune response, can be either wanted (i.e., vaccines) or unwanted. The latter refers to an immune response to protein or peptide therapeutics, characterized by the production of anti-drug antibodies, which may affect the efficacy and/or the safety profiles of these drugs. Consequently, evaluation of the risk of immunogenicity early in the development of biotherapeutics is of critical importance for defining their efficacy and safety profiles. Here, we describe and validate a fit-for-purpose FluoroSpot-based in vitro assay for the evaluation of drug-specific T cell responses. A panel of 24 biotherapeutics with a wide range of clinical anti-drug antibody response rates were tested in this assay. We demonstrated that using suitable cutoffs and donor cohort sizes, this assay could identify most of the compounds with high clinical immunogenicity rates (71% and 78% for sensitivity and specificity, respectively) while we characterized the main sources of assay variability. Overall, these data indicate that the dendritic cell and CD4+ T cell restimulation assay published herein could be a valuable tool to assess the risk of drug-specific T cell responses and contribute to the selection of clinical candidates in early development.

The magnitude of the germinal center B cell and T follicular helper cell response predicts long-lasting antibody titers to plague vaccination

Frontiers in Immunology · 2022 · 7 citations

• Biology
• Immunology
• Virology

, the causative organism for plague disease, remains an important global health priority. Studies have demonstrated effective immune-based protection against plague challenge that is induced by plague antigen subunit vaccination in an aqueous alhydrogel formulation; however, whether these candidate vaccines in this formulation and presentation, induce long-lasting immunological memory in the form of durable cellular and antibody recall responses has not been fully demonstrated. In this study, we analyzed germinal center T follicular helper and germinal center B cell responses following F1V and F1 + V plague subunit immunization of mice with vaccines formulated in various adjuvants. Our data demonstrate that recombinant plague protein immunization formulated with IL-2/GM-CSF cytokines bound to alhydrogel adjuvant drive an increase in the magnitude of the germinal center T follicular helper and germinal center B cell responses following primary immunization, compared to vaccines formulated with Alhydrogel adjuvant alone. In contrast, plague protein subunit immunization combined with CpG ODN bound to alhydrogel increased the magnitude and duration of the germinal center Tfh and B cell responses following booster immunization. Importantly, enhanced germinal center Tfh and B cell responses correlated with long-lasting and high F1V-specific antibody titers and more robust antibody recall responses to F1V re-exposure. These findings indicate that vaccine formulations that drive enhancement of the germinal center Tfh and B cell responses are critical for inducing durable plague-specific humoral immunity.

Vigil: Personalized Immunotherapy Generating Systemic Cytotoxic T Cell Response

Cancer Science & Research · 2020 · 16 citations

• Medicine
• Immunology
• Biology

Immunosensors: Remaining Problems in the Development of Remote, Continuous, Multi-Channel Devices

2017-11-22 · 1 citations

The goals and objectives of the Immunosensors Program at the University of Utah are to develop the science and engineering basis for optically based immunosensors. This includes the development of sensors for proteins and other antigens, the development of multi-channel sensors (including built-in calibration and reference channels), the development of sensors which are capable of remote on-line and continuous or semi-continuous function and the development of sensors which are biocompatible and stable. This chapter will serve as a 1989 progress report on these various goals and objectives.(1)

Effect of a Pluronic® P123 Formulation on the Nitric Oxide-Generating Drug JS-K

Pharmaceutical Research · 2014-10-17 · 15 citations

Red-Emitting Substrates for Rapid Botulinum Neurotoxin Detection

2013-01-01

We report a new red-emitting molecular beacon for botulinum neurotoxin A suitable inexpensive rapid assay formats. Reaction kinetics including parameters like Km and Vmax were evaluated in a fluorogenic assay using the BoNT/A light chain.