Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

Avantika Kekatpure receives the APS Research Recognition Award

Congratulations to Avantika Kekatpure'10 in receiving the APS Research Recognition Award at the 2009 American Physiological Society (APS) Conference in Broomfield, Colorado. Avantika is a graduate student in the Master of Science, Pharmaceutical and Chemical Sciences Program at the Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Along with Roshanak Rahimian, Physiology and Pharmacology, and Leigh Anderson, Dentistry, Avantika was awarded 2nd place for their poster presentation on "Gender Differences in Aortic Endothelial Function in a Rat Model of Type 1 Diabetes: Possible Role of Superoxide and Cyclooxygenase."

Avantika was awarded the Sam Rose/Roche Diagnostics Graduate Student Travel Award, a scholarship honoring Sam J. Rose, PhD and matched by Roche, which enables selected graduate students to travel to national meetings, giving the student and the school national visibility for research and education. She also received the Marvin Malone Pharmaceutical Sciences Graduate Research Fellowship, created in memory of Pacific faculty member Marvin Malone for his dedication and mentorship. This scholarship is also awarded to graduate students to assist with travel expenses.

"I had a great time at the APS conference and got to learn a lot about the vascular biology field and how different people have a different approach towards a particular thing. The award motivates me to work harder and better towards my goals as I have realized that hard work does pay off in the end," said Avantika, who will be defending her thesis at the end of August.