It was a rewarding summer for a group of students from the TTUHSC Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy’s Graduate Program in Pharmaceutical Sciences (GPPS).

In July, Aditya Bhalerao, a research assistant for Luca Cucullo, Ph.D., was selected to participate in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Summer Course in Clinical and Translational Research – 2019 Cohort. The two-week course was conducted at the NIH facility in Bethesda, Maryland.

Ekram Chowdhury, a research assistant for Ulrich Bickel, Dr. med., received a Best Poster Award during the 13th International Conference on Cerebral Vascular Biology June 25-28 in Miami. Chowdhury was one of four honorees selected from 158 entries for the award, which was sponsored by the International Brain Barriers Society.

Chowdhury also was selected as a finalist for the Novartis Quantitative Science Academia-to-Industry Hackathon event Aug. 12-23 on the Novartis Campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The two-week program is designed to provide graduate students and postdocs with training and hands-on experience working on real-world problems in pharmaceutical research and development.

In addition, the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) selected Chowdhury and Ali Keshavarz, a research assistant for Fakhrul Ahsan, Ph.D., to receive travel scholarships to attend the PharmSci360 Meeting Nov. 3-6 in San Antonio.

At the PharmSci360 Meeting, AAPS will present Chowdhury with a Best Abstract Award for two of his abstracts. According to AAPS, Chowdhury’s abstracts bring attention to some of the most exciting research to be found in the posters and were among the top 10 percent as ranked by AAPS Abstract Screeners.

GPPS students Ali Sifat, Behnaz Lahooti and Snehal Raut also will receive an AAPS Best Abstract Award at the PharmSci360 Meeting. Sifat works as a research assistant for Thomas Abbruscato, Ph.D., and Lahooti is a research assistant for Rahul Jayant, Ph.D. Raut, who is a research assistant for Abraham Al-Ahmad, Ph.D., received a travel award from the Cayman Chemical Company to attend the meeting.