AACP Ranks UC San Diego Pharmacy School in Top Ten Nationally for Research Funding

Issued annually, the AACP report is a comprehensive list of total extramural-funded research awards received by U.S. colleges or schools of pharmacy based on public databases, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) RePORT, and direct collaboration with schools to ensure data accuracy. This year’s ranking is based on data from Oct. 1, 2022, through Sept. 30, 2023.

“Our wide variety of funded projects each target a distinct and pressing area of human health,” said Elizabeth Winzeler, Ph.D., associate dean for research and innovation at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and professor in the department of pediatrics at University of California San Diego School of Medicine. “These projects will help fight malaria, protect the health of breastfeeding infants, uncover marine-based medicines and discover new drug-like compounds.”

The breadth and scope of research at the pharmacy school are exemplified by the following major grants:

Working to eradicate malaria

Winzeler was awarded a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support the Malaria Drug Accelerator, which she directs, a global consortium of 20 institutions from the United States, Africa, Europe and Asia dedicated to discovering innovative therapeutics that may eradicate malaria. The mosquito-borne disease disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries, and infections are expected to rise as transmission seasons expand due to climate change.

Studying antibiotic transmission during breastfeeding

Shirley Tsunoda, Pharm.D., professor of clinical pharmacy and associate dean of pharmacy education at the school, is one of the principal investigators of a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to establish a Center of Excellence in Maternal and Pediatric Precision Pharmacology at UC San Diego. Tsunoda will lead studies that will determine if using antibiotics while breastfeeding alters an infant’s microbiome. Many people who breastfeed need to take antibiotics for common infections, so this effort will reveal if there is potential risk to an infant’s long-term health.

Democratizing the study of the ocean’s molecules

Understanding how organisms in aquatic ecosystems communicate on a molecular level requires sophisticated instrumentation that’s inaccessible for most aquatic laboratories. Pieter Dorrestein, Ph.D., professor of pharmacy at the school, created the MSCollaboratory, an initiative funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to support metabolite data collection and data analysis training for Moore Foundation-funded aquatic scientists, including those studying the ocean and freshwater environments. Through this work the largest marine metabolite data resource in existence will be created, potentially unlocking new insights into aquatic ecosystems and uncovering new marine-based medications.

Investing in state-of-the-art instrumentation

Brendan Duggan, Ph.D., Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) facility director and project scientist at the school, was awarded a NIH grant to purchase a high-end NMR spectrometer. This state-of-the-art instrument will help biomedical researchers in their quest to find new drug-like compounds and markers for early diagnosis of human diseases.