Chu and Wilkins bestowed UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences’ highest honors

David C.K. Chu, PhD ’75, has been selected to receive the 2017 Willis G. Gregory Memorial Award. The award is the most prestigious given by the school, honoring an outstanding alumni who personifies the ideals of service, integrity and the profession of pharmacy in the eyes of his colleagues.

Chu is a Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences at the College of Pharmacy, University of Georgia. He obtained his PhD in medicinal chemistry from UB in 1975 under the mentorship of Professor Thomas Bardos.

Chu has published more than 300 drug discovery-related scientific papers and has been awarded more than 50 U.S. patents. Several of his invented compounds are undergoing clinical trials in the therapeutic areas of cancer, hepatitis B virus, HIV and shingles.

An elected member of American Association of Advancement of Science, Chu received a MERIT Award from the NIH in 2001, and the UGA Inventor of the Year Award in 2002.

Tricia Lee Wilkins, PharmD ’08, is the 2017 recipient of the Orville C. Baxter Memorial Professional Practice Award. The award recognizes an outstanding practicing alumni pharmacist who demonstrates high ideals of professionalism and whose practice demonstrates genuine concern for patients.

Tricia Lee Wilkins is a pharmacy advisor and health information technology specialist working with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. She previously worked as an inpatient pharmacist at an academic medical center in West Virginia and with the Beacon Community Program supporting community led efforts to build and strengthen health IT, improve quality of care and develop innovative delivery of care models.  In this role she also led the ONC Sponsored LDL Challenge, a 16-week rapid cycle quality improvement challenge targeting patients with diabetes across five medical practices. Tricia Lee currently leads health IT standards and policy initiatives related to pharmacy practice and medication use. She is passionate about health IT enabled comprehensive medication management and medication safety.

Wilkins is a 2015 recipient of the Secretary for Health and Human Services Distinguished Service Award, the highest award granted by the Department and conferred by the Secretary.  She earned a doctor of pharmacy degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and completed her Master’s and Doctor of Philosophy degrees at West Virginia University.

In her spare time, Tricia Lee is an active member of her local church and regular participant on Hope TV’s in-depth interactive study program, Hope Sabbath School.