Pharmacy Graduate Students Garner Research Awards

• By Mark Hendricks
• May 6, 2019

Sharavan Ramachandran, Kumari Itishree Kaushik and Md. Sanaullah Sajib, Ph.D. candidates in the School of Pharmacy’s Graduate Program in Pharmaceutical Sciences, were selected as winners March 19-22 in Lubbock during the 31st Annual Student Research Week. The TTUHSC Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences sponsors the event.

Ramachandran won first place, Kaushik took second place and Sajib finished in third place in the Pharmaceutical Sciences and School of Pharmacy Student Division. Ramachandran also won the Lubbock Economic Development Alliance Commercialization Award.

Graduate students Shyanne Page and Ali Sifat were among a small number of graduate students invited to make podium presentations at the event.

Ramachandran and Kaushik work as research assistants for Sanjay Srivastava, Ph.D., and the Department of Immunotherapeutics and Biotechnology. Sajib works as a research assistant in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences laboratory of Constantinos Mikelis, Ph.D. Page and Sifat both are research assistants in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Page works in the laboratory of Abraham Al-Ahmad, Ph.D., and Sifat works in the laboratory of Thomas Abbruscato, Ph.D.

Ramachandran also was selected by the American Association of Indian Scientists in Cancer Research-Legacy Immigration Scholarship Committee to receive a Travel Scholarship to attend the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting March 29 – April 3 in Atlanta.

In addition, Sajib was one of 25 graduate students selected from across the country to participate in the Graduate Student Recruiting Program (GSRP) event hosted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-National Cancer Institute (NCI) May 7-8 at the NIH-NCI facility in Bethesda, Maryland. The purpose of the event is to recruit outstanding senior graduate students to fill NIH-NCI postdoctoral positions.

 

Other travel awards and scholarships recently received by GPPS students:

Snehal Raut and Ekram Chowdhury were selected to receive a travel scholarship provided by the University of Toronto School of Pharmacy to attend the Workshop on Novel Approaches Targeting Brain Barriers for Effective Delivery of Therapeutics April 29 – May 1 in Herndon, Virginia. The International Brain Barriers Society and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists co-sponsor the workshop. Raut works as a research assistant for Al-Ahmad and Chowdhury is a Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences research assistant for Ulrich Bickel, Dr. Med.

Ali Keshavarz was selected by the Assembly on Pulmonary Circulation to receive an abstract scholarship to help him attend the American Thoracic Society International Conference May 17-22 in Dallas and the group’s 2020 conference. Keshavarz is a research assistant for Fakhrul Ahsan, Ph.D., and the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Ahmed Alobaida was invited by the International Society of Aerosols in Medicine (ISAM) to give a podium presentation at their pre-conference session during the American Thoracic Society (ATS) International Conference May 17-22 in Dallas. Alobaida works as a research assistant in Ahsan’s Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences laboratory.