Milo Gibaldi

Dr. Milo Gibaldi, pharmacokinetics and biopharmaceutics pioneer, joined the UB Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences faculty in 1966, having served as assistant professor at his alma mater, the School of Pharmacy at Columbia University, from which he earned a PhD in pharmaceutics three years prior. In 1967 he was promoted to Associate Professor at UB. In 1970 he was made a full Professor and appointed department chair.

During the 12 years he taught in Buffalo, Dr. Gibaldi distinguished himself as a pioneer researcher and educator in the areas of Biopharmaceutics and Pharmacokinetics. He made major contributions in fundamental areas, particularly in the pharmacokinetics of “first pass metabolism.” He was instrumental in establishing the first Clinical Pharmacokinetics Laboratory at Buffalo’s Millard Fillmore Hospital in 1972, which fostered the growth of therapeutic drug monitoring worldwide.

 In 1978 Dr. Gibaldi was appointed dean of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Washington, Seattle. The University of Washington soon became one of the top-ranked schools for pharmaceutics.  He retired from there in 1995, yet continued his teaching as Dean Emeritus and the Gibaldi Endowed Professor of Pharmaceutics. He remained in Seattle until 2003 at which time he moved to Chicago to join the faculty at the Chicago College of Pharmacy, soon becoming Associate Dean for Research.

 During the course of his career, Dr. Gibaldi wrote over two hundred scientific papers and published eight textbooks in pharmacokinetics, which became classics that have taught and influenced most working scientists in the field. He won numerous awards and honors, including the Host-Madsen Medalist from the International Pharmaceutical Federation (1991), the Volweiler Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (1992), the Takeru Higuchi Research Prize from the American Pharmaceutical Association (1994), the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Research Achievement Award in Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics and Drug Metabolism (1996), and the Millennial Pharmaceutical Scientist Award at the Millennial World Congress of Pharmaceutical Sciences (2000). He was also an AAPS Fellow and was elected as a member of the Institute of Medicine, of the National Academy of Sciences in 1986.

Dr. Gibaldi passed away January 13 2006 in Chicago at the age of 67.