Katharina Brandl, RPh, PhD

Research Summary

Dr. Brandl’s research mainly focuses on educational innovations in the classroom. She is interested in understanding how students effectively learn core concepts within the pharmacy curriculum. Dr. Brandl develops new teaching methods to promote student learning. She is a designated pharmaceutical teacher with the main goal in striving excellence in pharmacology education.

Dr. Brandl is the course director of the “Principles of Pharmacology and Physiology” (PPP) core course for students of Pharmacy in their second year. In the School of Medicine, Dr. Brandl serves as the Pharmacology Thread Director and oversees pharmacology education for the entire first and second year core curriculum for medical students.

After becoming a registered pharmacist in Germany, she finished her PhD in Immunology/ Infectious Diseases. She performed her post-doctoral studies with Dr. Eric Pamer (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York) and the nobel – laureate Dr. Bruce Beutler (The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla). During her career she enjoyed mentoring undergraduate and graduate students and teaching pharmacy and medical students (core courses in pharmacology, immunology, molecular biology, pharmaceutical biology and pharmacognosy).

Key Contributions

• Discovered that antibiotics impair natural immune defenses in the intestines, allowing antibiotic resistant microbes like Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus to flourish.
• Identified a protein to reduce infections with antibiotic resistant bacteria in mice.

Potential Collaborative Programs

• Generating novel teaching approaches for pharmacists in the area of pharmacology and immunology

Academic Achievements

Education: School of Pharmacy and license to practice as pharmacist (R.Ph.), University of Regensburg, Germany, (1996-2002), Ph.D. (summa cum laude) Department of Pharmaceutical Biology and Department of Internal Medicine, University of Regensburg, Germany (2005), Postdoctoral studies Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center New York (2006-2007) and The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla (2008-2011), “Habilitation” (Dr. rer. nat. med. habil., german academic lecturer qualification) (2013) 

Awards and Honors: “Kaiser Award of Excellence in Teaching", UC San Diego, School of Medicine (2021, 2020, 2019, 2017), Chair, Division of Pharmacology Education, ASPET (2020), Excellence in Teaching Award, Skaggs School of Pharmacy (2019, 2016, 2013), “Innovations in Teaching Award”, UC San Diego, Skaggs School of Pharmacy (2018), "Fellow of the Academy of Pharmacology Educators, ASPET (2017), "Teacher of the Year Award", AACP (2017), Barbara and Paul Saltman Distinguished Teaching Award, UCSD (2016), Joel and Ellen Gordon Young Investigator Award (2016), Pharmacology Educator Award ASPET (2016)

Selected Publications

• Brandl K. et al. (2008). Vancomycin-resistant enterococci exploit innate immune deficits induced by antibiotic treatment. Nature 455:804-7.
• Schneid SD et al. (2018). A summer prematriculation program to help students succeed in medical school Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract. 23(3):499-511.
• Brandl K., Rabadia S. V., Chang A, Mandel J. (2018) Benefit of focus group discussion beyond online survey in course evaluations by medical students in the United States: A qualitative study. J Educ Eval Health Prof.;15:25.
• Brandl K., Mandel J., Kelly C. (2019). Dean’s perspective on Academic Communities at UC San Diego, School of Medicine, J Med Educ Curric Dev. 23;6
• Brandl K., Schneid S, Tsunoda S., Awdishu L. (2019). Assessing Students' Satisfaction with a Redesigned Pharmacology Course Series Am J Pharm Educ. 83(7):6971

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