Graduate students from St John’s University, New York and Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, took first-place and runner-up awards in Catalent Pharma Solutions’ Global Academic Competition for Life Science Leaders of Tomorrow.
The competition aimed to identify the world’s premiere scientific talent and innovative research at the university level, while rewarding academic excellence.
The first-place prize for best Research Article was awarded to Zhen Ye of St John’s University for her paper titled, The Development and Scale-up of Biodegradable Polymeric Nanoparticles for the Non-Steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drug Ibuprofen.
Pulkit Khatri, also of St John’s, took first place for best Research Proposal on the Construction of Recombinant Lactococus Lactis for Oral Delivery of Glucagon Like Peptide-1 Fused to Cell Penetrating Peptide for the Treatment of Type-2 Diabetes.
The first-place winners received a US$5,000 cash prize and an opportunity to intern at Catalent Pharma Solutions.
Runner-up Trung Xuan Nguyen from Purdue University won for his proposal titled, The Design, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Indenoisoquinolines as Potent Dual Topoisomerase 1, Tyrosyl-DNA Phosphodiesterase 1 inhibitors.
‘This competition allows us to acknowledge some of the world’s best emerging talent in the pharmaceutical sciences,’ said Rao Tatapudy, vice president of Scientific Affairs, Innovation & Growth at Catalent Pharma Solutions, and chair of the global competition.
‘We were very excited to offer this university partnership programme, and to strengthen further our ongoing partnerships with academia, while at the same time offering graduate students in pharmacy exposure to a global leader in drug delivery and formulation.’
Sponsored by Catalent Pharma Solutions, and with St John’s University as the academic lead for the programme, the competition was open to university students enrolled in graduate programmes in pharmaceutical science, industrial pharmacy, drug delivery, drug development, or related disciplines.
Participants were asked to submit either an original research article focusing on challenges in drug development and/or drug delivery, or a research proposal that clearly described an original, innovative research project in drug development/delivery.
‘The performance of our graduate students in the competition really showcases our pharmacy programme and the innovative research taking place on our campus,’ said Louis Trombetta, chair of the St John’s University College of Pharmacy.
