The Schwartz-Bloom laboratory has completed 18 years of research investigating novel pharmacologic approaches to prevent neuronal death caused by cerebral ischemia associated with cardiac arrest and stroke. The group studied how GABA neurotransmission dysfunction contributes to the death of hippocampal neurons after ischemia in vivo or in vitro. Clinical trials based on her research findings are now in progress to prevent neuronal damage after acute stroke in humans. Dr. Schwartz-Bloom's research program continues now exclusively in science education, which she started in 1996. As Director of RISE at Duke (Raising Interest in Science Education , www.rise.duke.edu), Dr. Schwartz-Bloom develops and provides novel science education curricular materials to the K-12 and college community. Dr. Schwartz-Bloom is the director of the Pharmacology Education Partnership (www.thepepproject.net), which developed a series of pharmacology- and drug abuse-related science education modules for high school biology and chemistry students. Testing of over 15,000 high school students has revealed that student performance in biology and chemistry improves when they use the pharmacology curriculum developed by her team. Dr. Schwartz-Bloom has also established the Pharmacology course for Duke University TIP, a summer program for gifted 9 th and 10 th grade students. Dr. Schwartz-Bloom provides several opportunities for Duke Pharmacology graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to obtain experience in teaching.

RD Schwartz-Bloom and MJ Halpin. “ The Pharmacology Education Partnership ” © 2002, Web-based pharmacology modules for teaching high school biology and chemistry. See: www.thepepproject.net

RD Schwartz-Bloom and MJ Halpin. (2003) Integration of pharmacology topics into high school
biology and chemistry classes improves student performance. J. Res. Sci. Teach . 40: 922-938.
Online at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/106561992/PDFSTART

IM Lipkus, CM McBride, KI Pollack, RD Schwartz-Bloom , E Tilson and PN Bloom. A randomized trial comparing the effects of self-help materials and proactive telephone counseling on teen smoking cessation. Health Psychology 23:397-406, 2004.

RD Schwartz-Bloom . The Pharmacology Education Partnership: Improving high school biology and chemistry. The Pharmacologist 47:13-16, 2005. Online at:
http://www.aspet.org/public/The_Pharmacologist/v47n1_3_05.pdf

MJ Halpin, L Hoeffler, and RD Schwartz-Bloom . Pharmacology topics help high school students learn basic principles of biology and chemistry. Sci. Teach. 72: 48-51.

RD Schwartz-Bloom (2005) Science education: A neuroscientist's view of translational medicine. J. Neurosci. 25:5667-5669.