Summer research 2018
The third annual Summer Research Program is well underway. The goal of the program is to encourage undergraduate students in pharmacy or any discipline with relevance to pharmacy research to become aware of career options in research, including pursuing graduate studies.
This year's participants and faculty supervisors include:
- Dr. Cathy Balsom working with Rebecca Druken on, "Impact of a Pharmacist-Administered Deprescribing Intervention on Nursing Home Residents."
Description: She will be continuing our work at St. Pat’s in deprescribing and tackling the qualitative side of the project. She will be interviewing prescribers, nursing staff, residents and families about the deprescribing project at the home to see what impact it had on the residents’ quality of life.
- Noriko Daneshtalab working with Alexandra Porter (biochemistry) on, “The effect of Vitamin B12 on kidney and brain damage associated with hypertension and inflammation”
Description: The project will require the brain of pregnant and non-pregnant female mice of two strains: One that makes them susceptible to high blood pressure, and one that has the gene for getting hypertension via a certain pathway gone. Some of them will be put them under exercise regimen and some will be sedentary, and we will see the effect of these treatments on some neuronal markers of inflammation.
- Terri Genge working with Emily Quinlan on “Efficacy and cost-effectiveness of an intensive and abbreviated individualized smoking cessation support program delivered by pharmacists: A randomized controlled trial”
- Laurie Twells working with Malcolm Snow (psychology) on, “The impact of bariatric surgery, specifically laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) on medication use in the first two years after surgery"
Description: The primary objective of the study is to determine if there are changes in medication use before and after surgery in the short term (24 months). The study is about evaluating if there are changes in medication use after individuals living with severe obesity undergo bariatric surgery for the treatment of obesity. The student will analyze data on 200 patients and compare medication use before surgery and at 12 and 24 months after surgery.
- Stephanie Young working with Rachel Ward on, “The role of the pharmacist in an adult outpatient thrombosis service"
Description: Pharmacists are uniquely qualified with the knowledge and skills required to work in many settings, including ambulatory clinics. They have an in-depth understanding of therapeutics, medications, as well as the practicalities and logistics of accessing and administering medications. The Adult Outpatient Thrombosis Service at Eastern Health is a new outpatient service tat became operational in October 2017. The goal of this service is to improve the quality of clinical service for people experiencing or at risk of a blood clot who may require anticoagulation therapy. Care is provided by a team of pharmacists and physicians thorough a number of specialized clinics. The summer undergraduate research project is a retrospective chart review designed to describe the role of the pharmacist in the Thrombosis Service in the first seven months of the program.
- Dr. John Weber working with Nicole Head on, “Ability of marine compounds to protect animals from ethanol-induced dysfunction”
Description: We have previously found that rats exposed to ethanol during the adolescent brain period exhibit long-term problems with motor coordination, memory and on tests of anxiety. In this summer project, we well test the effects of a diet enriched with sea cucumber extract for potential protective effects against this ethanol-induced dysfunction. Rats will be exposed to ethanol while on a sea cucumber-enriched diet, and we will examine motor function, memory and anxiety levels for several weeks after ethanol exposure using well defined behavioural tests.