Howard University College of Pharmacy professor Emmanuel O. Akala has received $1.3 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health to study drug therapy problems related to fighting triple-negative breast cancer and HIV/AIDS.
The NIH-funded studies will receive $616,000 for research on triple-negative breast cancer and $772,500 for HIV/AIDS. Those diseases are known to disproportionately affect African Americans.
“We are very excited to receive support from the NIH,” said Akala, who works as the director of the College of Pharmacy’s Laboratory for Nanomedicine, Drug Delivery, and Pharmaceutical and Biopharmaceutical Drug Products Design and Development. “Whatever good ideas we have in research, we cannot implement unless there is money to support it. I am also very happy to be able to contribute to solving health problems, particularly those that affect African Americans disproportionately.”
Akala, who has taught at Howard University for 25 years, directs the Center for Drug Research and Development in the college and teaches Pharm.D. and doctoral courses in pharmaceutical sciences.