2021 Olstein, Bighley, and Rowell Fellowship Winners

Congratulations to our graduate students who have been awarded 2021 fellowships from the University of Minnesota's College of Pharmacy!

Md Abdullah Al Noman (Georg Lab) was awarded the Biruta K and Peter A Olstein Fellowship, which is given to a full-time CoP PhD graduate student with exceptional potential in their field. Noman’s research “Development of RARalpha inhibitors for non-hormonal male contraception” focuses on development of selective RARalpha antagonists to reversibly suppress sperm maturation and confer male infertility. A secondary line of research, “Synthesis and evaluation of metabolically stable pironetin analogs” focuses on optimizing the anti-cancer properties of pironetin by designing new analogs with better bioavailability.

Pooja Hegde (Aldrich Lab) was awarded the Bighley Graduate Fellowship, which is given to full-time CoP PhD graduate students who have great potential and are conducting research in basic and applied pharmaceutical sciences. Pooja’s research: “Antibacterial agents against tuberculosis: Past, Present and Future” focuses on improving small molecule drugs such as pyrazinamide, p-amino salicylic acid and isoniazid, for the treatment of tuberculosis, through a better understanding of their mechanism of action, off-target profiles and drug disposition liabilities using contemporary methods in medicinal chemistry. A secondary line of research, “Development of a biocatalyst for synthesis of modified nucleosides” focuses on integrating enzymology and biotechnology with organic chemistry and synthesis, to design novel biocatalysts for the synthesis of modified nucleosides.

Caitlin Jokipii Krueger (Tretyakova Lab) and Josh Shirley (Carlson Lab) were both awarded the Ted Rowell Graduate Fellowship, which is given to full-time CoP PhD graduate students who are conducting research in basic pharmaceutical sciences with an emphasis in nutrition or drug delivery systems. Caitlin’s research “Carcinogen-induced DNA damage: Ethnic differences and sources of exposure” focuses on understanding the role that DNA adducts play in cancer risk assessment and on identifying dietary and metabolic sources of endogenous DNA damage to better understand risk factors of disease development.

Josh's research “Development of Chemical Tools to Study Penicillin-Binding Proteins” focuses on understanding how Penicillin-Binding Proteins are regulated and how they function in multi-protein machinery complexes that carry out bacterial cell division and growth in order address the significant problem of antibiotic resistance.