Q&A with Rhashanda Haywood: Designing Novel Organic Compounds as Anti-Seizure Drugs
November 13, 2023Rhashanda Haywood, a PhD student at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, aims to develop novel drugs to minimize seizure frequency for epilepsy patients.
About 3 million Americans are living with epilepsy, a common neurological disorder that causes recurring, unprovoked seizures due to an electrical imbalance in the brain.
Rhashanda Haywood, a PhD student at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, received a 2023 PhRMA Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in Drug Discovery for her research that aims to develop novel drugs to correct this imbalance in the brain to minimize seizure frequency.
Haywood works on a drug discovery team that recently identified a small organic compound (IAA65) that could potentially reduce the occurrence of seizures. Haywood’s research involves synthesizing and evaluating new derivatives of this compound to identify better anti-seizure drug candidates that have minimal side effects.
Watch this video to learn about Haywood and her research.
Learn more about the PhRMA Foundation’s fellowship and grant opportunities. Check out more researcher stories on our blog.
