CU’s Skaggs School of Pharmacy’s annual research poster presentation featured great research from nearly 200 P-3 students on Tuesday, Oct. 27. The exhibit, which is a collaborative effort between the Departments of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Clinical Pharmacy, allows students the opportunity to conceptualize research ideas and create practical pharmaceutical solutions to real-world problems. Forty groups presented posters on topics ranging from substance abuse to cancer.
“We’ve all worked in pharmacies and all seen people go through substance abuse,” said Drew Grasmick, whose group researched substance abuse. The group’s poster featured graphs highlighting the increase in substance abuse, and more specifically, opioid abuse.
Stephanie Tram’s, Aubrey Jones’s, and Robert Valdes’s group focused on Helicobacter pylori – a type of bacteria that lives in the digestive tract and causes ulcers – and the effects treatment has on an individual in a third world country where reinfection is high.
“H. pylori is everywhere; about two-thirds of the world’s population has it,” said Tram. “We want to be able to determine if treatment is actually a beneficial use of resources.”
Another group focused on prostate cancer, testing how a new drug would react with older drugs used to treat prostate cancer.
“Prostate cancer is getting a lot of attention in the field,” said Jordan Bloomer. “We want to create a better chance for a longer life.”
Students begin researching their topic during the spring semester of their second year and present during the fall semester of their third. Regardless of the topic area, the students realized the true value a pharmacist brings to the healthcare field.
“At the end of the day, your pharmacist is the end of the line,” said CU student Theresa Phan.
