Presented by the St. Louis Regional Chamber, the Arcus Awards recognize the achievements of private businesses, governmental organizations, innovators and non-profits that are helping to make the St. Louis region an attractive place to live, work and invest.
The Center for Clinical Pharmacology was one of four organizations selected as BMO Harris Bank Spirit of St. Louis Award finalists for 2020. Each year, the award honors organizations that embrace risk-taking, innovation, cutting-edge technology, or industry best practices to extend St. Louis’ rich history and global reputation as a hub of innovation and forward-looking vision.
Located at the University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy in St. Louis (UHSP), the Center for Clinical Pharmacology was created in 2015 as an unprecedented joint research venture between UHSP and the Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) designed to find safer and more effective ways to use prescription medications. Initially housing just two faculty researchers with joint appointments at UHSP and WUSM, the center now has nine faculty members and more than 25 postdoctoral research associates, graduate and undergraduate researchers and technical staff members working on projects focused on the treatment of chronic pain and metabolic disease.
“We’re so thrilled to have been presented with this award,” said Karen Seibert, professor of anesthesiology, genetics, and pathology and immunology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and executive director of the Center for Clinical Pharmacology. “Just over five years ago, the notion of our center was born. Today, we have established an incredible team of researchers with years of experience in drug discovery and development who are receiving millions of dollars in grant funds to support numerous state-of-the-art research projects. It’s an honor to be recognized for the cutting-edge work that is happening in our labs.”
Researchers at the center receive grant funds annually from agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the American Heart Association and the U.S. Department of Defense.
In recent months, UHSP researchers at the center have received over $6 million in funding from NIH and the Department of Defense to support projects focused on the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and muscle function. Additional grant funding is supporting research to better understand and improve the treatment of pain, optimize the use of existing drugs to treat pain and develop and identify new analgesic drugs and other therapeutic approaches to pain.
“It’s really amazing to see how far we’ve come at the center in such a short amount of time,” Seibert said. “This Arcus Award represents an important milestone in our history, and I can’t wait to see where we’ll go from here.”