News

APRIL 24, 2024

Congratulations to Biomedical Engineering undergraduate student Oliver Hubbard who received the third-place prize for his presentation  “Reducing Drug Adsorption in Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Circuits” at the 2024 Biomedical Engineering Senior Research Symposium! Oliver did this research under the supervision of Dr. Nitish Khurana and in collaboration with Dr. Kevin Watt in Clinical Pharmacology Department.

APRIL 22, 2024

Congratulations to Dr. Hamid Ghandehari for his recent honors by the Office of Undergraduate Research! Dr. Ghandehari was named the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor for the College of Pharmacy

MARCH 7, 2024

Congratulations to Drs. Nitish Khurana (Molecular Pharmaceutics and Pediatrics), Venkata Yellepeddi (Pediatrics), Hamid Ghandehari (Molecular Pharmaceutics), and Kevin M. Watt (Pediatrics)! Their manuscript “Direct and Continuous Dosing of Propofol can Saturate Ex vivo ECMO Circuit to Improve Propofol Recovery” in the Journal of ExtraCorporeal Technology was selected for the JECT Technique Article Award.

September 25, 2023

Congratulations to Hamid Ghandehari for receiving an Ascender Grant from the PIVOT Center. This program helps inventors bridge the funding gap between research and commercialization by providing support for technology development, proof of concept, and preparing the innovation for additional investment by entrepreneurs, investors, and potential licensees. The project focuses on a bioengineered liquid embolic for treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

September 1, 2023

Congratulations to PI Abby Pulsipher (Molecular Pharmaceutics and Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery) and her Co-Is, Justin Savage (GlycoMira Therapeutics), FokVun Chan (Echelon Biosciences), Jeremiah Alt, Kristine Smith, and Bryan McRae (Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery), for receiving an R41 grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases! 

This Small Business Technology Transfer grant, “Development of a Diagnostic Test for Eosinophilic Chronic Rhinosinusitis,” represents a collaboration between GlycoMira Therapeutics and the University of Utah. Their work will focus on optimizing and clinically validating a minimally invasive, rapid point-of-care test that can provide accurate diagnostic information to healthcare providers and patients with eosinophilic chronic rhinosinusitis, a disease with an under-recognized burden on patient quality of life, clinical resources, and the healthcare economy. The investigators envision that this test might also have prognostic value to serve as an objective clinical tool for monitoring patient response to medical and surgical treatments.

July 31, 2023

At the CRS meeting Nitish Khurana and Bhuvanesh Yathavan were both recognized as winners of best poster award category and Hamid Ghandehari received the Distinguished Service Award and participated as a panelist for the “Young Scientist Chat with A Luminary” session. 

After the CRS meeting our team had a retreat at Bryce Canyon in Southern Utah.

July 20, 2023

Congratulations to Biomedical Engineering undergraduate students Oliver Hubbard and Andy Yu who were selected for Fall 2023 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Award! 

Their applications were selected from a competitive pool of fellow students.

The UROP provides undergraduate students and mentors the opportunity to work together on research or creative projects.

July 20, 2023

Congratulations to Bhuvan Yathavan for his defense “Controlled Drug Delivery in Chronic Rhinosinusitis”!

July 13, 2023

Congratulations to Drs. Hamid Ghandehari (PI), Nitish Khurana (First-time Co-I!; Molecular Pharmaceutics), Abby Pulsipher (Molecular Pharmaceutics and Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery), and Richard Cannon (Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery) for receiving funding from the Huntsman Cancer Institute Experimental Therapeutics program! 

Their project, “Targeting vascular dysregulation pathways in HPV+ oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma,” will focus on new nanoscale platforms that effectively deliver indocyanine green in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma models to ultimately improve transoral robotic surgical outcomes using fluorescence-image guidance.

June 22, 2023

Congratulations to Molecular Pharmaceutics Ph.D student Tanya Chhibber for winning the Fox Award, nominated by her fellow students! 

Each year, the Department honors the memory of Dr. Jeffrey Fox with this award. The award is intended to recognize an outstanding graduate student based on the recommendation of his or her peers. As described by Dr. James Herron, Dr. Fox was a “good scientist and a wonderful human being. He had a particular rapport with both his own students, as well as the department’s student body and became a strong advocate for students — which is one of the reasons the Fox award was created.” Award recipients are selected based not only on academic merit, but also on service to the Department, the University, and to fellow students.

June 12, 2023

Dr. Abby Pulsipher (Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery and Molecular Pharmaceutics) and investigative team, Drs. Nitish Khurana (Molecular Pharmaceutics), Hamid Ghandehari (Molecular Pharmaceutics), Richard Cannon (Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery), and Jeremiah Alt (Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery), have been awarded the Head & Neck Cancers Center pilot grant award. 

Their proposal seeks to validate new nanoscale platforms that effectively deliver indocyanine green in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma models to ultimately improve transoral robotic surgical outcomes using fluorescence-image guidance.

May 24, 2023

Congratulations to the collaborative team of Drs. Nitish Khurana (Molecular Pharmaceutics), Eric Babajanian (Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery), Hilary McCrary (Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery), Abigail Pulsipher (Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, Molecular Pharmaceutics), Hamid Ghandehari (Molecular Pharmaceutics), Jeremiah Alt (Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery), and Richard Cannon (Corresponding author, Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery) for their recent publication “Vascular permeability in HPV+ oropharyngeal cancers aids in fluorescent image-guided transoral robotic surgery using indocyanine green” in Head & Neck. 

Their article underscores the importance of vascular dysregulation and angiogenesis in HPV+ oropharyngeal cancers that allows for improved visualization of tumors during fluorescent image guided transoral robotic surgery of patients.

May 22, 2023

Congratulations to Dr. Hamid Ghandehari for receiving funding for an NIH R01 subcontract titled “The Function of MS4A3 in Normal and Malignant Hematopoiesis”! 

This grant focuses on the study of harnessing membrane-spanning four A (MS4A3) for therapy of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). The Principal Investigator is Dr. Michael Deininger, Versiti Blood Research Institute.

May 22, 2023

Major congratulations to Dr. Abby Pulsipher (Research Assistant Professor, Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery and Molecular Pharmaceutics)! Dr. Pulsipher was recently named a University of Utah Clinical and Translational Science Institute K12 Scholar for two years beginning on July 1, 2023.

The CTSI K12 Scholar Program offers training for mentored research and career development in support of junior investigators whose research endeavors are focused on clinical and translational research using the principles of translational science to advance health. Dr. Pulsipher’s proposal seeks to evaluate a point-of-care test for sinonasal eosinophil peroxidase and its association with eosinophilic chronic rhinosinusitis disease diagnosis, severity, treatment response, and patient outcomes.

April 3, 2023

Congratulations to Biomedical Engineering undergraduate student Oliver Hubbard working in the Ghandehari Lab under mentorship of Drs. Hamid Ghandehari and Nitish Khurana! Oliver was selected as a 2023 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awardee by the Office of Undergraduate Research. 

Oliver researches the design and development of drug modification strategies to reduce drug adsorption to the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation systems, which is a collaborative project with Drs. Kevin Watt and Venkata Yellepeddi in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Pediatrics. His mentor Dr. Hamid Ghandehari noted that Oliver’s “enthusiasm, quick learning of laboratory skills, commitment and productivity, citizenship, and communication skills are exemplary.”

March 15, 2023

Congratulations to Dr. Hamid Ghandehari on being selected for the Controlled Release Society (CRS) Distinguished Service Award. 

The Distinguished Service Award is presented to a CRS member who has exhibited exceptional commitment and service to the society. This award will be presented at the annual meeting of CRS to be held in Las Vegas in July 2023. Congratulations Dr. Ghandehari on this international distinction!