Pharmacy Faculty showcase their research at the 2025-2026 UIC Spark Talks

“Journey toward Critical Thinking: Media’s Influence on Critical Care and Emergency Medicine”

Critical thinking has long been recognized as an essential outcome of pharmacy education, yet strategies to meaningfully foster its development remain elusive. Defined as reasonable and reflective thinking that guides decisions on what to believe or do, critical thinking encompasses interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation, and self-regulation. Professional organizations, including the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP), have emphasized the importance of cultivating these skills in pharmacy curricula. Research suggests that critical thinking is best promoted within a structured and intentional framework that incorporates a thoughtful learning environment, modeling of expert reasoning, guided feedback, and deliberate opportunities to challenge assumptions.

In response to this educational need, we designed and implemented an innovative elective course, Media’s Influence on Critical Care and Emergency Medicine, specifically aimed at advancing critical thinking in third-year pharmacy students. First offered in 2023 across the Chicago and Rockford campuses, the two-credit elective enrolled 21 students. The course leveraged the unique framework of analyzing portrayals of critical illness in popular media as a springboard for critical inquiry, reflection, and discourse. Each week, students viewed a media clip depicting a clinical scenario and engaged in small-group case analyses to compare the representation against textbook knowledge, identify inaccuracies, propose revisions, and evaluate the implications of inaccurate portrayals. These analyses were posted to a shared discussion forum, presented in class, and critiqued through peer and faculty feedback.

“Community-based mobile programs to promote health awareness, prevention and wellness in underserved communities.”

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the health disparities encountered by members of underserved communities, evidenced by high prevalence, low vaccination rates and poor outcomes. The prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia and respiratory diseases is also high in these communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed and implemented mobile vaccination programs seeking to educate members of underserved communities on the risks and benefits associated with COVID-19 infection and vaccinations through educational outreach while providing them opportunities to get vaccinated at various non-health care gathering sites within these communities using mobile vaccination clinics. Between Nov. 2020-Nov. 2021, our teams conducted more than 50 outreach events and more than 150 vaccination events across 38 zip codes in Chicago, most in communities with a medium-high Chicago COVID-19 vulnerability index. Collectively, more than 2,700 vaccines were administered to residents of these communities. Given the success of this approach, in 2022, we developed a community-based mobile health program to educate members of underserved communities on various cardiovascular risks while providing mobile health screenings at various non-health care gathering sites. We also completed 10 events across four sites in south suburban Cook County. The number of participants varied greatly among sites, ranging from 0-20 participants. Among the 51 community members screened for cardiovascular risk factors, 36 (71%) had one or more abnormal values, indicating poor risk factor control. Elevated blood pressure was present in 74%, abnormal lipid values were present in 69%, abnormal glycemic indices were present in 39% and abnormal spirometry was present in 30%. Participation in community-based mobile programs, which include educational outreach, screenings and vaccinations, varies significantly in underserved communities but can be beneficial for raising health awareness, detecting uncontrolled cardiovascular risk factors and promoting health and wellness.

“Exploiting Bacterial Communication Networks to Manipulate Bacterial Pathogens”

The Federle lab studies Gram-positive bacterial pathogens and focuses on mechanisms of cell-to-cell communication pathways and their impact on host-pathogen interactions and bacterial fitness. We determined that bacterial activities, which include immunosuppression, acquisition of antibiotic resistance, and production of antimicrobial and virulence factors, are each governed by intercellular signaling systems in streptococcal species. Our long-term objective is to identify means to inhibit signaling as a therapeutic strategy to treat or prevent bacterial infections. The Spark Talk will present an example of a communication network in Streptococcus pyogenes that dysregulates innate immune signaling. Jamming this communication network is a powerful strategy to restore immune function and block

“No pain, no gain: How anesthetics increase severity of microbial infection”

Health care-acquired infections are the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., with the direct economic burden estimated to be between $28 and $34 billion. Anesthetic administration has been associated with a significantly increased risk of infection in hospital patients and studies have connected the effects of commonly used anesthetics with a general decrease in host resistance to infection. Propofol is the most common anesthetic induction agent used for the induction of anesthesia in surgery, in the ICU and for routine outpatient procedures. In the nearly 30 years since its introduction, propofol has grown to become the predominant anesthetic in clinical use throughout the world, lauded for its rapid on- and off-set, relatively mild side effects and flexibility in both the induction and maintenance of anesthesia. We have found, using animals as models, that brief (5-minute) sedation with propofol dramatically increases the severity of infection. Experimental evidence implicates a metabolic breakdown product of propofol that increases host susceptibility to infection, and that this breakdown occurs more rapidly in females than in males, suggesting that women are more susceptible than men to the negative effects of propofol sedation. Slight chemical modification of propofol eliminates immune suppression without compromising the drug’s sedative effects. These findings should help with the development of modified drugs for anesthesia with reduced risk of adverse infection outcomes.

“The mangosteen fruit as inspiration for novel agents for prostate cancer”

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the fifth leading cause of malignancy-related death worldwide and the second most diagnosed cancer in men. Although FDA-approved anti-androgens are responsive in the early stages, drug resistance remains a significant challenge in PCa treatment. Data from our lab demonstrated that α-mangostin, one of more than 70 xanthones isolated from Garcinia mangostana promotes the degradation of wild-type and mutated androgen receptors through activation of binding immunoglobulin protein (BiP). BiP is a multifunctional protein, ranging from protein folding and stress responses to cell surface receptors for initiating apoptosis. Our previous studies have shown that mangosteen fruit extract and specific xanthones from the mangosteen induces apoptosis in PCa cells. We have characterized the mechanism by which xanthones disrupt prostate cancer through distinct mechanisms in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, we have utilized this as inspiration to develop assays capable of screening thousands of compounds to identify novel BiP binders and that promote androgen receptor degradation. Our strategy is to identify BiP Associated Androgen Receptor Degraders (BAARDs).

“UIC RCOP Summer Program: Contemporary Clinical Pharmacy Practice and Education”

UIC’s Retzky College of Pharmacy has been collaborating with institutions around the world for more than 40 years to advance pharmacy practice and education. Partnerships have included sharing experiences for curriculum transformation, clinical practice development and faculty training, pathways for entry into the Retzky College of Pharmacy PharmD program, residency programs and fellowship and offering extended shadowing experiences in-patient care at inpatient and outpatient clinical pharmacy practice sites at the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System (UI-Health). Collaborative degree programs with the University of Hong Kong and University of Malta are also in place. These efforts to provide skills enhancement and curricula transformation are aimed at educating the next generation of pharmacists for advancing pharmacy practice in their own countries. In 2013, we created a short-term classroom-based summer curriculum for international pharmacy students, pharmacists and faculty members to nurture interest in clinical education and practice. The four-week “Contemporary Clinical Pharmacy Practice and Education” program provides a comprehensive overview of the spectrum of clinical pharmacy practice and education opportunities in the United States. The program is conducted annually in July by more than 30 Retzky College of Pharmacy faculty members, each an expert in their clinical area. Topics have included common disease states in various inpatient and ambulatory settings, clinical skills enhancement, descriptions of unique clinical pharmacy practice models, leadership and career pathways and patient case-based teaching. The sessions combine didactic and hands-on skills laboratories and case-based teaching to facilitate the learning experience. UIC PharmD students are utilized as student ambassadors and help give the summer students a near-peer experience. There is no course credit provided for attending the summer program, and students stay in the Single Student Resident Housing for the duration of their stay. The course has been offered 10 times and has educated 509 participants from 13 countries and 28 institutions throughout Asia and Europe. Based on annual evaluations, the program has been successful in providing international participants an opportunity to learn about clinical pharmacy practice and to experience pharmacy education in the United States. Participants find the didactic lectures and practical skills sessions beneficial in shaping their future academic pursuit in clinical pharmacy and related areas and are grateful for the opportunity to learn about potential skills and activities that can be utilized when they return home. We look forward to continuing collaboration with our international partners to provide these experiences to many students, pharmacists and faculty members in future years.

“Co-Designing the Future of Pharmacy in Chicago”

What will a Chicago pharmacy look like in 50 years? And how can we begin designing that future today—especially amidst countless pharmacy closures and pervasive pharmacy deserts on the South and West Sides?

The UIC Retzky College of Pharmacy partnered with the Institute for Healthcare Delivery Design to envision the future of “community pharmacy.” A diverse group of subject matter experts—pharmacists, business owners, public health professionals, industry specialists and, most importantly, patients—convened for a series of five interactive workshops.

Early workshops focused on “solving the right problem” by mapping the current state of pharmacy and existing pain-points and bright -spots. Later sessions shifted toward “solving the problem right” by unleashing imagination to co-design solutions. Ideas ranged from medication delivery robots and community developed pharmacist training programs to pharmacy health resorts and library-based pharmacy hubs.

These workshops sparked a collective imagination for what pharmacy could and should become: more equitable, more accessible, and more intentionally designed to meet the needs of the community.