Pharmacy graduate earns fellowship at one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies
Anne Carlisle is on the fast track to become a clinical pharmacologist thanks to clinical and research skills earned at Lipscomb.
Janel Shoun-Smith |
Anne Carlisle (Pharm.D. ’24), a Wheaton, Illinois, native who will receive her Lipscomb Doctor of Pharmacy this May, thought that after more than two years working in Lipscomb’s pharmaceutical sciences laboratories, she would soon be headed to Vanderbilt University to complete her Ph.D. on the way to becoming a clinical pharmacologist.
With a post-baccalaureate background as a research specialist at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, working on a team that carried out phase one clinical trials for cancer drugs, she knew exactly what she wanted to do. But, as a Ph.D. takes several years, she didn’t think she would be able to get to her dream immediately upon earning her Pharm.D. at Lipscomb.
Turns out she was wrong. Carlisle was able to land a rare two-year fellowship opportunity with Boehringer Ingelheim, one of the largest private pharmaceutical companies in the world, as a clinical pharmacologist. She will work from the company’s U.S. headquarters in Connecticut to help design the clinical trials that are needed to bring a drug to market.
She will work with phase one, two and three trials, write the study reports that are required to be submitted to the Federal Drug Administration and will likely spend some time in Germany, where the company is based, she said.
Instead of spending several more years studying how to develop drugs, now she’s on the fast track to hopefully become a lead clinical pharmacologist within a few years.
“Fellowships are really hard to come by for pharmacy students,” said Carlisle. “The acceptance rate is pretty low.” So she didn’t expect to actually attain any of the several fellowships she applied to. However, her deep experience in research trials in Wisconsin and working with Scott Akers, Lipscomb’s executive director of pharmaceutical sciences research and Carlisle’s mentor, paid off.
Lipscomb’s ability to provide training in pharmaceutical sciences research, as well as a Pharm.D. was a draw for Carlisle, who knew she wanted to continue doing research. For most of her career at Lipscomb, Carlisle worked together with Akers, alongside Northwestern and Vanderbilt universities, on a study of a new drug to treat heart arrhythmias.
Northwestern came up with a model for testing the drug, called 2-hydroxylbenzamine (2HOBA), to treat arrhythmias using an animal study, and Akers and Carlisle analyzed the drug’s pharmacokinetics, or how the body processes the compound, in order to determine the appropriate dosage for optimum effectiveness.
“Northwestern sent us blood samples, and we analyzed those to see how much of the drug was in the animal at different time points,” Carlisle said. “We’re working to make sure the drug concentration is within a therapeutic range over a period of time, so that we can figure out how to dose the drug to prevent or treat a heart arrhythmia.”
Carlisle says the heart arrhythmia project funded by the American Heart Association has been “beneficial to see the pre-clinical side of a study and the challenges that come with it.” All of the data collected will hopefully support a new drug application reviewed by the Federal Drug Administration when the drug is ready to be reviewed for use in humans, said Akers.
“I really enjoyed the biopharmaceutics class taught by Dr. Akers where I developed a passion for drug pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, in addition to the more clinical courses taught in pharmacy school,” said Carlisle. “Understanding that what I’ll be doing as a clinical pharmacologist will actually affect patients and that I must always strive to develop drugs that are safe and effective. I enjoy going behind the scenes and working toward that.”
With its new Master of Pharmaceutical Science program, Lipscomb’s College of Pharmacy hopes to produce many more students who can head straight into the pharmaceutical science industry, said Akers. Whereas Lipscomb’s Pathway to a Ph.D. program has sent several students on to Vanderbilt University to study pharmacology, the new master’s program will prepare students for not only a Ph.D., but also to move straight into the pharmaceutical industry, following the same path Carlisle has blazed for them, he said.
“The new master’s program makes us much more diverse in how we train our students and where we can send our graduates,” he said.