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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nPRINCESS ANNE, MD<\/strong> – (Jan. 27, 2015) – \u201cThe struggle\u201d to overcome drug-resistant bacteria in the vernacular of today’s college student \u201cis real,\u201d and a University of Maryland Eastern Shore pharmacy professor is about to try his hand at solving that vexing health care challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Madan Kharel won a \u201cNew Investigator Award\u201d worth $10,000 from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy to launch his search for new medications he hopes can replace antibiotics rendered ineffective by new strains of bacteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know the issue,\u201d Kharel said. \u201cI know the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Research into antibiotic-resistant bacteria is also emerging as a priority of President Obama’s administration, according to this Washington Post article<\/strong><\/a> . <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kharel is UMES’ second School of Pharmacy faculty member in as many years to receive a research grant from AACP. His across-the-hall colleague, Dr. Patrice Jackson-Ayotunde, received a grant in 2014 to support her work researching new medications to treat epilepsy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The association has long supported a program that \u201cprovides start-up funding for new pharmacy faculty’s research programs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kharel, who joined UMES’ faculty in 2013, was one of 15 collegiate educators selected this year to receive seed funding for new research initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe’re investing in the scientists. We see potential,\u201d said Kirsten F. Block, AACP’s associate director of research and graduate programs. \u201cWe want to give them the push to that big grant down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Victor Hsia, a faculty colleague, said Kharel’s \u201caccomplishment \u2026 puts UMES on the national stage of pharmaceutical research. Winning this award for the second straight year shows the scholarly commitment of our faculty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n UMES pharmacy students will benefit being around a faculty-researcher who will be working on the front lines of shaping new classes of medicine that someday they will dispense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s wonderful he is receiving this recognition,\u201d said Cynthia Boyle, interim dean of UMES’ pharmacy school. \u201cIt is unprecedented for a new school of pharmacy to have faculty members designated as new investigators in successive years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kharel toiled almost a dozen years in a University of Kentucky research lab, where he utilized his training in biochemistry and molecular biology to work on antibiotic research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When offered a faculty position in UMES’ upstart pharmacy program, he saw the move as a way to teach and forge a new path where he could take the lead in research into health care challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat has been my dream,\u201d Kharel said, \u201c\u2026 to be an independent faculty member doing research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Officially, Kharel’s winning grant application was called \u201cRational Design of Thiopeptide Antibiotics through Biosynthetic Pathway Engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One strain of bacteria on his radar is Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, better known as \u201cMRSA.\u201d The acronym strikes fear in those diagnosed with the infection and the health care professionals who treat it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBacteria are growing more and more resistant to antibiotics,\u201d he said. \u201cThe challenge we are facing is: ‘How do we bridge the gap?’.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Theories abound in the lab and on paper on how to design new treatments, but finding practical, safe applications that make complex molecules in new medication safe to treat a sick human – or mammal – is a daunting and time-consuming task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Large pharmaceutical companies are increasingly moving away from exclusive reliance on in-house research to develop new drugs, particularly new antibiotics, so higher education researchers are filling the void.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kharel is anxious and excited to become part of that trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFinding the pathway to synthesize these compounds and make them effective is possible, but,\u201d he noted, \u201cit is very, very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI’m looking forward to seeing if some of the ideas I have might work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill Robinson<\/strong><\/a> , director, Office of Public Relations; (410) 621-2355<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tuesday, January 27, 2015 PRINCESS ANNE, MD – (Jan. 27, 2015) – \u201cThe struggle\u201d to overcome drug-resistant bacteria in the vernacular of today’s college student \u201cis real,\u201d and a University of Maryland Eastern Shore pharmacy professor is about to try his hand at solving that vexing health care challenge. Dr. Madan Kharel won a \u201cNew Investigator…Read more UMES researcher looks for new path in creating antibiotics<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4283,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-4282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4282"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=4282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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