Shawn Flynn Selected As The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Highlighted Trainee Author For March 2022
Shawn Flynn, a student in the Physiology and Pharmacology discipline of the Integrated Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. program, has been selected by The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics as the highlighted trainee author for March 2022 in recognition of his most recent publication “Characterization of the discriminative stimulus effects of binary mixtures of mu opioid receptor agonists in rats discriminating fentanyl.”
According to the award notice, the editors only select one author from this impressive group and this feature of the journal is designed to highlight emerging scientific talent in the field of pharmacology.
Shawn was nominated by his mentor Charles P. France, Ph.D. The vast majority of opioid overdoses involve fentanyl or one of its many analogs, such as carfentanil. Since humans are typically exposed to fentanyls as an adulterant of other drugs, Shawn is working on a project to determine whether mixtures of opioids containing heroin and fentanyl or fentanyl analogs might have different effects than each drug when taken alone.
“I nominated Shawn for this honor because of his hard work and keen sense of being able to identify significant scientific problems that can be addressed in a basic science laboratory,” France said.