EDUCATING LEADERS IN PHARMACY AND PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCES SINCE 1886
December 2022
Welcome to the next edition of the Buffalo Pharmacy Bulletin (BPB) where we will continue to explore and discuss social issues in health care and how we as academicians, practitioners and scientists can lead and support these issues. The BPB will also keep you updated on the latest school news, highlighting the outstanding work of our UB SPPS community.
“The best way to ensure we can support and mentor our future pharmacists and research scientists is to make sure we are reviewing and discussing what is currently happening in the dynamic and ever-changing world we live in.”
UB SPPS Is on The Move and Growing
In our October Bulletin I had the pleasure of announcing the creation of our Drug Discovery, Development and Evaluation (DDDE) Hub and corresponding faculty expansion. We subsequently have received additional investment to support the recruitment of thought leaders in several important research areas. Given the magnitude of our current faculty hiring efforts, and its intent of establishing our school as a national leader in education, research and scholarship within pharmacy and the pharmaceutical sciences, I felt it was important to provide you with more information on our continued expansion and growth in this edition of the Buffalo Pharmacy Bulletin.
Our concept for the DDDE Hub originally was focused on four new positions, representing an investment in SPPS from the provost’s office, in the areas of drug discovery/design, drug formulation/pharmacoengineering, translational therapeutics, and outcomes sciences. We had the opportunity to expand the Hub concept with two additional new positions in protein engineering and biologically-based drug delivery systems. Finally, through normal faculty turnover, we added another three positions, focused primarily on pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, to the Hub.
In November, we received additional investment to begin the recruitment of senior investigators in drug discovery, drug delivery, translational therapeutics, and health outcomes. These specific hires will support the development of a new divisional structure within the Departments of Pharmacy Practice and Pharmaceutical Sciences and will add critical mass to existing areas of concentration in the SPPS research portfolio. Our restructuring plan will be the subject of a future Buffalo Pharmacy Bulletin.
Taken together, these new positions will increase the number of tenure-track faculty in SPPS by more than one-third over the next 18 months. This is an astonishing growth profile, and a unique opportunity for a school such as ours to substantially increase its impact. I am enormously grateful to Provost Weber and President Tripathi for their leadership and their confidence that SPPS can contribute fundamentally to UB’s aspirations to be a top-25 public research university.
Your assistance in helping to promote these faculty hires would be appreciated. Please see the job postings below for additional information.
- DDDE Hub Opportunities: https://www.ubjobs.buffalo.edu/postings/38113
- Division Head Opportunities: https://www.ubjobs.buffalo.edu/postings/39462
Thank you for all you do to help support UB SPPS and I look forward to sharing more good news with you as our faculty hiring process moves forward.
With best wishes for the holiday season and a happy and healthy 2023.
Gary M. Pollack, PhD '84
Dean and Professor
Buffalo Faculty News
Origins of new autoimmune treatments found in Balthasar lab
A groundbreaking discovery by Joseph Balthasar, PhD, David and Jane Chu Endowed Chair in Drug Discovery and Development, professor of pharmaceutical sciences, director of the Center for Protein Therapeutics, executive director of University Research Initiatives, and his research team, has led to a groundbreaking new discovery for treating autoimmune disease.
Straubinger and Qu labs identify key metabolic regulators of drug resistance in the fight against pancreatic cancer
The University at Buffalo (UB) research teams of Robert M. Straubinger, PhD, UB Distinguished Professor, and Jun Qu, PhD, Professor, both of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, recently published a research article in Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, a top international proteomics journal, describing their work in identifying key metabolic regulators involved in cancer cell resistance to gemcitabine (Gem), a standard-of-care chemotherapy for pancreatic dual adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most lethal type of pancreatic cancer. The team also includes William J. Jusko, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor, and several of his lab members.
Wojciech Krzyzanski named ISoP fellow
Wojciech Krzyzanski, PhD, associate professor, pharmaceutical sciences, has been named a 2022 fellow of the International Society for Pharmacometrics (ISoP). The fellowship is given in recognition of outstanding professional and scientific contributions to the global pharmacometrics community and sustained volunteer service to ISoP.
View upcoming events on the UB Events Calendar!
Thank you for reading our December 2022 edition of the Buffalo Pharmacy Bulletin. Please stay in touch! Send us updates on your own personal and professional accomplishments by filling out our alumni update form.
Regards,
Gary Pollack, PhD '84
Dean and Professor