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Michael Cohen, Sc.D., a pharmacist and patient safety advocate, is this year’s recipient of the Award for Patient Service from the Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Michael Cohen, Sc.D., a pharmacist and patient safety advocate, is this year’s recipient of the Award for Patient Service from the Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The institute’s Award for Patient Service honors a person who has made significant contributions to empowering patients and to the advancement of rational drug therapy.

Cohen is the founder and president of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, a nonprofit health-care organization that specializes in understanding the causes of medication errors and providing error-reduction strategies to the health-care community, policy makers and the public. He has served on various nonprofit and governmental committees and advisory groups, such as the FDA and the Institute of Medicine. In 2005, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recognized him as a MacArthur Fellow.

Howard McLeod, Pharm.D., director of the institute and Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s division of pharmacotherapy and experimental therapeutics, said Cohen had committed his professional career to reducing preventable drug and drug delivery mistakes.

“Michael Cohen is an early pioneer in the global movement to address medication errors, bringing international visibility to this serious problem,” he said. “His work supports our primary goal to help the health-care community better select medicines based on rational evidence, ultimately helping to improve patient treatment and reduce medication errors.”

Cohen recently received the award and presented a seminar at UNC.

The UNC Institute for Pharmacogenomics and Individualized Therapy was formed in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy as a collaborative effort with the schools of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing and with support from the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Carolina Center for Genome Sciences.

For more information, visit: http://www.ipit.unc.edu.

UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy contact: David Etchison, (919) 966-7744, david_etchison@unc.edu
News Services contact: Patric Lane, (919) 962-8596, patric_lane@unc.edu

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