Dr. Jacinda (JAM) Abdul-Mutakabbir, PharmD, MPH, AAHIVP

Dr.  Jacinda Abdul-Mutakabbir is currently an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of California San Diego in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Division of the Black Diaspora and African American Studies (. She completed her Doctorate in Pharmacy at the University of Saint Joseph School of Pharmacy, located in Hartford, CT. Following pharmacy school, she completed her pharmacy residency at the Howard University Hospital in Washington, DC. She also completed an Infectious Disease Pharmacokinetics/ Pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) Research Fellowship under the tutelage of Dr. Michael J. Rybak PharmD, MPH, PhD, and went on to earn a Masters of Public Health at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. Her research in mitigating antimicrobial resistance has led her to be recognized by the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases as one of their 30 under 30 outstanding young scientists, for their ECCMID 2021 31^st annual meeting.  Dr. Abdul-Mutakabbir is also dedicated to magnifying and rectifying health inequities in minoritized communities. To that point, she currently serves as the Lead Pharmacist and Educator for Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement-Health Equity Collaborative.

Dr. Abdul-Mutakabbir’s research utilizes a two-fold approach to explore the intersection of antibiotic resistance, and health/vaccine equity; with a specific focus on racial differences observed across racially and ethnically minoritized groups. With this, her scholastic contributions, are focused into three very distinct categories, vaccine equity, equity in pharmacy and medicine, and the utilization of antimicrobial synergistic activity to overcome multidrug-resistant organisms. Currently, she serves as the lead pharmacist for the low-barrier community vaccination clinics held within the Black and Hispanic/Latino communities. The methods for the completion of these clinics have served as a basis for her vaccine equity research and have been published in The Lancet Global Health amongst other journals. Of note, more than 3,000 vaccination doses have been provided to racially and ethnically minoritized individuals, under her direct guidance, within these clinics. Jacinda has received numerous national awards for her contributions and research in the vaccine equity clinics, and the work as well as her expertise on health and vaccine equity has been documented in several top-ranking new sources including NPR, The Atlantic, US News, Scientific American, and the Daily Mail. Jacinda’s work and research to expand vaccination efforts to increase uptake and confidence amongst people with substance use disorders is also featured on the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse web page, Jacinda was appointed to the CVSH National Health Equity Advisory Board as a Pharmacist Expert based on her published research on vaccine equity

Jacinda is currently involved in several mentorship and sponsorship programs (including the Pharmgrad Wishlist), designed to reduce disparity gaps for racially and ethnically minoritized pharmacy students as they matriculate through the profession. She has collaborated with a variety of authors, representing numerous disciplines within healthcare, to advocate for diverse, equitable, and inclusive initiatives for minoritized students and practicing professionals. Of note, two manuscripts that she served as an author on were included on the AJHP Top 25 Journal Articles of 2021 list.

Finally, in several collaborative efforts, Jacinda evaluated the synergistic activity of combination antimicrobial regimens against microbes in which advanced mechanisms of resistance were identified. For these projects, she was integral to the completion of both static and dynamic pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic experiments, simulating human parameters, to assess the therapeutic enhancement of the antibiotic combination regimens against Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms including Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus spp., Enterobacteriaceae, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Several projects have included novel antibiotics and treatment modalities, such as bacteriophage, as the base for the investigated combination regimens. As antimicrobial resistance is a growing public health threat, continued research that optimizes their use and defines mediators of resistance of the utmost importance.