A Sister's Quest for a Cure: Margie McGlynn, MBA '83 and BS '82, president of the Homocystinuria Network America, has endowed a professorship in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences to find holistic solutions for rare genetic diseases like the one that took the lives of two of her sisters in childhood. Watch the video above.

At the University at Buffalo, we’re helping people live healthier lives. We have been for 175 years.

And our School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is renowned for leading the charge in transforming pharmacy from a profession to an engine for education and cutting-edge research. Today, it’s ranked 14th in the country and No. 1 in New York State.

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For the good of humanity

As the second-oldest discipline at UB, our mission has remained steadfast—to improve health through innovation and leadership in pharmacy education, clinical practice and research. It’s why, in 1972, the pharmacy school opened the first clinical lab in the United States that studies how drugs circulate throughout the body, and a lab to investigate HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases at the height of the AIDS crisis in 1987.

We have always understood that to prepare students for the real world, they’d need real-world experience. Improving lives through health isn’t just an opportunity, it’s a responsibility. Our students, faculty and alumni work tirelessly to create solutions that affect real change in the lives of patients and their families, whether they are in Western New York or around the world. Often, these solutions start right at home, motivated by heartbreak experienced by families within the UB community.

Margie McGlynn, MBA ’83, BS ’82, is one such person. After losing two sisters in childhood to a rare metabolic disease called homocystinuria, Margie decided to follow in her father’s footsteps and enter the pharmacy profession. She earned her pharmacy degrees and MBA from UB, and worked in the pharmaceutical industry for decades, helping identify unmet needs, bringing new products to market and maximizing patient access. In 2016, she established a nonprofit organization called HCU Network America to help patients with the condition and related disorders manage their disease, with the goal of one day finding a cure. 

Realizing the need for a holistic approach to educate and train professionals to help patients with genetic conditions, Margie also recently made the major decision to leverage the resources at the UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences through a gift to endow a chair. “I want the school and this position to take on a leadership role and figure out what the educational modules across disciplines need to be,” McGlynn says. “Nutritionists, nurses, ophthalmologists, mental health counselors—whatever the case may be—all different disciplines need to learn about these diseases in order to treat them holistically.” 

Holistic Care through UB Health Sciences

Part of this holistic approach to care naturally requires us to address gaps and disparities in the health system and actively combat them head on. Not just the pharmacy school, but the entire university. Together, all five health science schools work together to create a synergy for change, unlocking potential and unleashing the power of interprofessional education, collaboration and care. 

When Mary Brennan-Taylor, an adjunct faculty member in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences’ Department of Family Medicine, lost her mother, Alice, due to multiple health care-associated infections compounded by medication errors—all of which were preventable—she set out to ensure no other family would have to endure the same. Alice trusted the system, and it failed her. Today, Team Alice works to protect older patients from medication-induced harm, advocating for policy and system change while equipping current and future health care professionals with the skills and knowledge to prevent systemic failures.

Healing has always required teamwork. Modern healing demands it, without fail. This year, the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences proudly partnered with FeedMore Western New York to distribute drug disposal pouches to senior citizens in the community, and we will continue to do whatever is necessary to help care for our residents.

Support from alumni and friends help us make the impossible possible. Join us. Be bold. Invest in the next generation of change at the University at Buffalo.

Here is How We Care For Communities

Our health affects nearly every aspect of our lives, from our ability to combat chronic diseases to the economic impact of global pandemics. Here, we work tirelessly toward life-saving medical breakthroughs, improving efficiencies in our health care system and understanding the ways in which inequity affects health care outcomes.

To accomplish our goals, we draw on the expertise of our health sciences schools (pharmacy, medicine, nursing, dental medicine, public health and social work), as well as law, business and other key disciplines. With your support, we will continue to attract, retain and support the awe-inspiring students and faculty who dedicate their careers to helping others enjoy longer, healthier lives.

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Your investment in UB will make a difference for a cause that matters to you: whether you make a gift to the UB Fund, support a scholarship for one UB student, sustain the work of a professor who will inspire thousands, or fund a cancer cure that saves the lives of millions. Every gift counts!