EDUCATING LEADERS IN PHARMACY AND PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCES SINCE 1886
Morris named UB Distinguished Professor
Published July 2, 2014 This content is archived.
Marilyn Morris, PhD, vice chair of the University at Buffalo Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, has been named a UB Distinguished Professor. She will be honored for this distinction during the Celebration of Academic Excellence being held this fall.
The UB Distinguished Professor designation—not to be confused with the SUNY Distinguished Professor designation, a rank above that of full professor awarded by the SUNY trustees—was created by the Office of the Provost to recognize full professors who have achieved true distinction and who are leaders in their fields.
It is open to faculty members who have been a full professor for at least five years and who have achieved national or international prominence and a distinguished reputation within their field through significant contributions to the research/scholarly literature or through artistic performance or achievement in the fine arts.
A UB faculty member since 1985, Morris is internationally known for her research that focuses on membrane transport proteins, their influence on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs, and their use as therapeutic targets. She has published extensively on renal transport, hepatobiliary transport and hepatic clearance models, and the ATP-dependent binding cassette and monocarboxylate transporters.
Morris’s recent research is focused on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of monocarboxylic acids, including the drug abuse of γ-hydroxybutyric acid. Other current research projects involve the dietary components flavonoids and organic isothiocyanates, with an emphasis on their potential for transport and metabolic drug interactions, and their role in cancer therapy and chemoprevention.
She is currently president of pharmaceutical sciences’ premier organization, the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2012) and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (2003). She is the recipient of a UB Distinguished Postdoctoral Mentor Award (2012), a Distinguished Alumni award from the University of Manitoba, Canada (2013), an AAPS Service Award from the Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics and Drug Metabolism section (2010), a Faculty Service Award through the Pharmacy Leadership Society/Beta Omicron Chapter/UB (2010), a State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity (2006) and a nomination for Teacher of the Year, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (2009).
Morris received her PhD in pharmaceutics from UB in 1984 for her work on the pharmacokinetics of sulfate conjugation and inorganic sulfate with SUNY Distinguished Professor Gerhard Levy. After completion of the doctoral degree, Morris became a Medical Research Council fellow (1984- 85) at the University of Toronto, where she worked on drug metabolism in isolated perfused organ systems with K. Sandy Pang, PhD.