Department & Center News

Rare Disease Day 2023

The eleventh annual Rare Disease Day at the University of Minnesota was co-hosted by the Center for Orphan Drug Research and the Stem Cell Institute on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Nearly 200 people joined us, either virtually or in person at the McNamara Alumni Center, for "Diversity in the Rare Disease Community: Challenges for Newborn Screening and Early-life Genetic Testing Equity." The program featured Amy Gaviglio, MS, CGC as our keynote speaker. The keynote was followed by a panel that included participants who serve underrepresented communities. We were honored to have University of Minnesota President, Joan TA Gabel, provide recorded remarks for the program as well. 

We were pleased to be able to host this event in person again. Thank you to everyone who presented posters, hosted tables, sponsored the event, and joined us for the program. Congratulations as well to the Rare Disease Day Research Award recipients: Crystal Chang, Medical School graduate student; Dante Rogers, MINDS Scholar; and Jaehyeok Roh, ECP post doc.

  • Postgraduate Pharmacy Residency Program: Spring 2023 Curbside Consult and Summer 2023 Curbside Consult
  • Department of Medicinal Chemistry: The STEAM Team is a student-led, science-focused outreach group that has been mentoring students at Thomas Edison High School. On June 7th, we had a poster session where TEHS students presented the culmination of their science experiments to UMN Med Chem graduate students and faculty.
  • Department of Pharmaceutics: The college has partnered with Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) on NextGen Star, a pilot program for pharmaceutics graduate students. Students will gain exposure to R&D in the pharmaceutical industry and have an all-expense paid, immersive, one-week experience at BI’s Ridgefield, CT site. Ten students from the Department of Pharmaceutics were accepted as NextGen Stars! This experience is the culmination of a seminar series piloted last winter with BI researchers.