Dr. Esperanza J. Carcache de Blanco, Associate Professor, Divisions of Pharmacy Practice and Science and Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacogosy, College of Pharmacy, The Ohio State University (OSU)
Co-Investigator – Project 1
Dr. Carcache de Blanco’s initial degree was a Licensure in Pharmacy awarded by the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua School of Pharmacy, Leon, Nicaragua (UNAN-Leon). After several years as a faculty member at UNAN-Leon, Dr. Carcache de Blanco completed her graduate studies (M.Sc. and Ph.D.) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) on natural products drug discovery. Dr. Carcache de Blanco has a comprehensive background in natural product drug discovery and in vitro bioassay development, and has worked in the area of natural products for over 30 years. Her research includes phytochemical investigations (identification and structure elucidation of pure compounds and in complex mixtures) and the biological evaluation of natural products. During the last few years, Dr. Carcache de Blanco has developed and optimized Elisa in vitro assays for the present program project, which are used to evaluate promising compounds isolated in Projects 1-3 and synthesized in Core B. In addition, she has performed a number of cellular mechanism-of-action investigations on compounds from plants, cyanobacteria, and fungi of high interest to the program project.