Dr. Christine Cadiz and Dr. Alexandre Chan Receive 2024 UC Irvine Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences Pilot Studies Awards

Dr. Christine Cadiz, associate clinical professor in the UC Irvine School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Dr. Alexandre Chan, professor and Founding Chair of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy Practice, are among this year’s UCI Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences Pilot Studies Awards honorees.

In the UCI School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, our students and faculty benefit greatly from the interdisciplinary teamwork that is a tenet of the UCI Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences. As a part of this institution that includes schools and programs in medicine, nursing, and public health, and is closely connected to the UCI Health system, our faculty members and students are able to work with professionals in every corner of the healthcare space.

It is this spirit of collaboration that fuels the UCI Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences Pilot Studies Awards, which provide funding to projects spearheaded by multidisciplinary teams.

Dr. Cadiz is the principal investigator (PI) on a project entitled “Implementation of an Intensive Post-Discharge GDMT Optimization Pilot in Heart Failure,” alongside co-investigators Dr. Dawn Lombardo, professor and Vice Chair of Education in the UCI School of Medicine, and Dr. Joanne Wong, transitions of care pharmacist in the Department of Pharmacy at UCI Health.

The project “will establish an intensive multidisciplinary post-discharge guideline directed medical therapy (GDMT) optimization program [for patients with heart failure]” and “use remote monitoring to assist with assessment of clinical status, combined with a fast-paced weekly visit approach to achieve target or maximally tolerated GDMT early after hospital discharge.”

Dr. Chan served as PI and worked with co-investigator Dr. Munjal Acharya of the UCI School of Medicine on “Augmentation of Dynamin-1 Levels Using Catalpol to Prevent Cancer-related Cognitive Impairment (ADC Study),” a project that intends to “determine neuroprotective effects by enhancing neuronal dynamin-1 using catalpol in vivo to manage cancer-related cognitive impairment (CRCI), with the aim to evaluate the therapeutic role of catalpol in mitigating CRCI following chemo- or radiation-therapy exposures.”

Dr. Chan and Dr. Acharya previously collaborated on another study that explored possible CRCI treatment options. The team received a five-year, $2.4 million grant from the National Cancer Institute for this research.

Congratulations to Dr. Cadiz, Dr. Chan, and everyone who was selected for the 2024 UCI Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences Pilot Studies Awards!