The Pharmacist / Spring 2022 / Volume 44 / Issue 2

Dr. Michael Federle
This is a
personal
odyssey for
me, and I’ll
openly admit
there’s a
selfish need
to solve this
puzzle.
continues to inform ambitious drug discovery efforts at
UIC and around the world.
“We’re not discovering any drugs tomorrow, but we’re
laying a foundation others can build upon,” says Mankin,
a professor at the college’s Center for Biomolecular
Sciences. “When you find something no one before
you knew, it’s a thrill, and there’s a feeling we’re doing
something immortal in the building of human knowledge.”
UNPACKING THE MYSTERIOUS LIVES
OF BACTERIA
Dr. Michael Federle calls his ongoing study of bacteria
a “persistent obsession,” one fueled by the spellbinding
nature of bacteria’s active citizenship in our bodies.
“You can take one test tube of bacteria and find millions
of mutants worth studying,” says Federle, a professor of
pharmaceutical sciences.
After years of suspecting that bacteria were “colluding
and coordinating” in the human body, Federle and his
lab team continue to unearth promising findings about
the intricate worlds bacteria build inside our bodies.
They have, for instance, helped discover the language
bacteria use to communicate with one another and
recently found that bacteria also alter their surface
composition to manipulate the body’s immune system.
This pioneering work sets the stage for the development
of drug leads to intervene with this networking and
unlocks opportunities for new therapies that can diffuse
conspiring bacteria.
“As we identify new targets in bacteria, we can then create
more precise therapies to combat them,” Federle says.
He acknowledges it won’t be easy, though, as bacteria
remain an elusive adversary for scientific researchers
like himself.
“This is a personal odyssey for me, and I’ll openly admit
there’s a selfish need to solve this puzzle,” Federle says.
SEEKING SOLUTIONS FOR OVARIAN CANCER
While doing research review work for the U.S.
Department of Defense, Dr. Maria Barbolina has
listened to personal stories of women staring down their
mortality and battling ovarian cancer, one of the most
unforgiving, deadliest cancers. Some, like Barbolina,
are in their 40s and mothers of young children.
“It hits home,” says Barbolina, an associate professor
in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
In comparison to other cancers
impacting women, ovarian cancer
struggles to gain its share of attention.
While some 330,000 U.S. women
receive a breast cancer diagnosis
each year, far fewer–about 20,000–
hear they have ovarian cancer.
“But this is not such a rare, uncommon
disease when you meet the people
facing it,” Barbolina says. “I see the real
people behind these statistics and I’m
determined to do something about it.”
Since arriving at UIC in 2008, Barbolina
has devoted substantial research attention
to understanding ovarian cancer’s basic
biological activity, which continues to miff
scientific investigators. Her most promising
work includes repurposing a drug
originally developed for neurodegenerative
diseases. Early findings suggest this
therapeutic may improve prognoses
for ovarian cancer patients resistant to
traditional chemotherapy agents.
“It’s exciting because I know what that would
mean to women like those I’ve met and their families,”
Barbolina says.
EMBRACING RESEARCH AS
AN ANTIDOTE TO PATIENT NEEDS
Seeing vulnerable patients daily as a clinician at UIC,
Dr. Karen Sweiss understands better than most the
urgent need for pragmatic research to drive change.
“I see every day how our patients are counting on
us, and that pushes me to ask important research
questions,” says Sweiss, a clinical assistant professor in
the Department of Pharmacy Practice.
Consider Sweiss’s work around melphalan, a
chemotherapy drug commonly used in treating
multiple myeloma. When Sweiss’s group first began
investigating melphalan pharmacokinetic (PK)
variability through retrospective studies, they noted
high variability in drug exposure in patients with lower
hemoglobin and creatinine clearance.
The group then published its experience
with performing real-time melphalan
PK testing to allow for rapid-dose
modification based on PK estimations.
Dr. Karen Sweiss
16 THE PHARMACIST PHARMACY.UIC.EDU