DEPARTMENT OF PHARMACEUTICS
Michael A. Repka, Chair
2006-2007
PRIMARY FUNCTIONS/MISSIONS
The goals of the Department of Pharmaceutics are aligned with the School of Pharmacy’s and the University’s missions of excellence in teaching, research and service. More specifically, the unit’s primary missions include providing curricular content in the areas of physical pharmacy, basic pharmacokinetics, dosage forms and drug delivery systems, and bio-pharmaceutics in both the B.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Doctor of Pharmacy professional degree programs. In addition, the Department's educational mission is to edify Master’s and Ph.D. graduates with scientific competence in these related areas of expertise, including pre-formulation, formulation, pharmaceutical processing, biomaterials, and novel drug delivery systems. The Departmental faculty is also to provide this same expertise as members of multi-disciplinary teams to scientific projects conducted in the National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR). Each faculty member must engage in independent scholarly pursuits and provide service to the School, The University and the discipline.
SUCCESS IN ACHIEVING GOALS
The departmental faculty members continued to progress and succeed in their teaching activities, including planning for the successful implementation of Pharmaceutics course content into the School of Pharmacy’s Skills Laboratory. The Department is poised to play a significant role in the Oxford-based Skills Lab since the subject content taught by the Department of Pharmaceutics comprises a significant component of the national licensure examination for pharmacists. These areas include physical pharmacy, dosage forms and pharmaceutical compounding, basic pharmacokinetics and biopharmaceutics. It is noteworthy that all graduates of this institution successfully fulfilled that examination during this reporting period. In addition, high quality graduate education is a significant contribution to the School of Pharmacy as well as The University. Faculty participation in research activities increased significantly from previous years, with increased involvement in multidisciplinary and collaborative efforts, including NCNPR, other departments within the School of Pharmacy, the School of Engineering, the Medical School, other universities and industry (both multi-national and Mississippi-based pharmaceutical companies). Quantitative measures of this activity include the number of papers published or presented, patents, licensing and option agreements, and extramural research dollars secured. Furthermore, there was an increase in the number of research proposals submitted to funding agencies for the fifth consecutive year.
ADDITIONS OR MODIFICATIONS IN PROGRAMS, CURRICULA, FACILITIES
The faculty continued to assess and modify curricular content of the departmental doctoral program. Some of the changes are ready for submission to the Graduate Council for approval. Changes in faculty expectations of the doctoral students, who are provided graduate teaching and research stipends, were successful in graduate student production and collegiality. This culture modification has been successful with more emphasis being placed on appropriate graduate scholar mentoring. Department Senior Secretary, Deborah King, has been instrumental in attaining these outcomes. Graduate student and post-doctoral scholar diversification has been demonstrated by Department recruitment efforts. All recruited graduate students for the 2006-2007 year were guaranteed stipend support for the second consecutive year. This trend was continued in the recruitment of the 2007-2008 grad student scholars, at even higher stipends due to changes implemented by the School of Pharmacy (SOP) Administration. During the last three years, the Department of Pharmaceutics, with the assistance of the Office of the Provost and the SOP, was successful in obtaining funding to significantly modify its undergraduate teaching laboratory. Facility improvement and equipment availability were enabled to make the laboratory area more appropriate for creating a richer learning environment for not only departmental courses, but also for interdisciplinary instruction, such as the future Skills Laboratory. Dr. Bonnie Avery, serving as Chair of the SOP’s Curriculum Committee, continues to lead the positive changes in the Department’s mission for undergraduate education, as well as that of the School. Significant improvement has been demonstrated in the compounding abilities of our professional program graduates due to recent changes in the Department’s hands-on, problem-based educational approaches. In addition, a recent National Institutes of Health (NIH) award in 2006-2007 has enabled the planning and future renovation (Spring/Summer 2008) of two new research laboratories within the unit.
NOTEWORTHY ACCOMPLISHMENTS/QUANTITATIVE FEATURES
Scholarly activity in the Department continued to exceed that demonstrated in previous years as evidenced by the faculty garnering more than $430,000 in extramural research/equipment/facilities in the 2006-07 fiscal year. This quantitative accomplishment is unprecedented in the Department’s history. The unit was awarded a major project within the Center of Research Excellence in Natural Products Neuroscience (CORE-NPN). This grant is a newly funded five-year research and training program awarded by the National Center for Research Resources at NIH. Dr. Michael Repka and Dr. Soumyajit (Jit) Majumdar are Co-PIs of the project (Dr. Rae Matsumoto, Professor of Pharmacology, is PI of CORE-NPN). A new faculty member, Dr. S. Narasimha Murthy, was also awarded a three-year grant from NIH. These extramural funding successes will catalyze more research support and scholarly activities in the near future.
Eight grant proposals, two patent applications and one option-to-license agreement occurred during the year. Faculty presented 29 papers at regional, national, and international meetings and authored eight papers in prestigious pharmaceutical peer-reviewed journals. In addition, the two new 2006-2007 faculty members, Dr. Murthy and Dr. Seongbong Jo, received Faculty Research Fellowships awarded by The University.
Dr. Jit Majumdar, who received his doctorate from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, completed his second year in the Department. Dr. Majumdar has vast industry experience and has already secured pharmaceutical industry grants, as well as serving as Co-PI on the previously noted NIH award. He continues to demonstrate his value to the Department and is very well-liked and respected by undergraduates in his teaching endeavors. He now directs two graduate student scholars as well as several other students and post-docs on the CORE-NPN NIH grant. He also serves as the unit’s representative to the School’s Faculty Council and Assessment Committee and was elected as an officer of the AAPS Nasal Drug Delivery Focus Group.
The emphasis on improving the quality of all departmental undergraduate courses was continued from the previous year. Dr. Bonnie Avery continued her service as Chair of the School’s Curriculum Committee, emphasizing the development of an inter-disciplinary undergraduate educational laboratory (Skills Laboratory). Dr. Avery has accelerated her activities in pharmacokinetics and supervises three graduate students and two post-docs. Her multi-disciplinary work with other School departments and industry has broadened her research capabilities. In summary, scholarly activities in research are additive to Dr. Avery’s steadfast and significant contributions to teaching and service.
Dr. Michael Repka completed his second year as Chair of the Department. His research background and educational experience in dentistry and pharmaceutics, coupled with the exceptional Department Faculty, has provided the leadership to move the unit forward. Dr. Repka was an invited speaker to three national conferences, and has been asked to speak at an Expert Council in Hot-Melt Extrusion in Germany in March 2008. Dr. Repka was also appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board of the prestigious AAPS PharmSciTech Journal during this reporting period, serves as a Delegate to the United States Pharmacopeia Convention and is an expert witness for several pharmaceutical companies. In the 2006-2007 fiscal year he became the Graduate Program Coordinator and has served for five years as a Faculty Advisor for the unit’s American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Student Chapter.
During the reporting period 2006-2007, the Department graduated two Ph.D. candidates from its program. Also, two of the current doctoral students applied for and were the recipients of prestigious summer internships, one with a multi-national pharmaceutical company and one with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Feedback regarding the scientific performance of these students was extremely positive. These data support the quality and reputation of the Department of Pharmaceutics’ program in the private, academic and governmental sectors.
PERSONNEL CHANGES
The departmental faculty in 2005-2006 consisted of only three individuals (two Associate Professors and one Assistant Professor) with full time responsibilities to the unit and two full professors with primary appointments in the National Center for Natural Products Research and the Office of Technology Management. Dr. Christy Wyandt, who assumed a position as Associate Dean of the Graduate School in 2003, serves twenty-five percent time within the Department. In summary, the educational mission of the unit was essentially borne by three junior faculty over the last several years.
However, two new Assistant Professors joined the Department in the 2006-2007 fiscal year. It is noteworthy that the Department attracted a strong applicant pool. The unit was very fortunate to hire two strong, experienced Assistant Professors. Dr. Seonbong Jo, who received his Ph.D. in Industrial and Physical Pharmacy from Purdue University and post-doctoral training at Rice University, coupled with his industry experience, brought expertise in polymer science, biomaterials and drug delivery systems to the Department. His excellent training under Dr. Kinam Park and Dr. Antonios Mikos has already contributed to expanding the national and international recognition of the unit. The second additional hire as an Assistant Professor, Dr. S. Narasimha Murthy, also brought added strength to the Department. Dr. Murthy received his Ph.D. from Bangalore University, Karnataka, India, worked as a post-doc at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY, and served as an Assistant Professor at Ohio Northern University. As noted earlier, Dr. Murthy was awarded a newly funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant, which is already an extraordinary accomplishment for both himself and the unit. In summary, although the unit has borne many personnel challenges over the last several years, there is a growing sense of optimism, enthusiasm and collegiality within the faculty and graduate students alike. It is noteworthy that the Department has not had five full-time faculty in a decade. However, with the hiring of two new exceptional Assistant Professors, the unit can move more rapidly to attaining its goals in teaching, research and service.
It should be emphasized that among the pharmaceutical science disciplines the greatest demand for academicians is within the pharmaceutics area, largely as a result of the major need for discipline scientists in the pharmaceutical industry. This demand is increasing yearly as new pharmacy schools open, class sizes of existing schools increase and industry position packages become even more enticing. These facts should place the accomplishments of the Department’s recruitment into perspective.
FUTURE NEEDS AND GOALS
The most significant need of the Department from the last reporting period was met by the hiring of two stellar Assistant Professors, Dr. Murthy and Dr. Jo. Our Senior Secretary, Deborah King, has now been working with unit for just over a year. Her dedication and energy is invaluable in regards to us meeting our goals.
The Department believes that a minimum of five full-time faculty members is necessary to successfully operate the unit. An additional full-time faculty member is being considered to strengthen the unit’s functions. In addition, the Department critically needs improved infrastructure to optimize scholarly accomplishments. One funded grant should start addressing this need in the Spring/Summer of 2008. It is also anticipated that several pending grants could significantly contribute to this requirement coupled with the continued support from Administration. Eight new doctoral students have been recruited over the past two years to fill the void created by the newly graduated Ph.D.s Only with an adequate number of quality personnel (a critical mass) will the Department be able to realize the vision of contributions to both the learning environment (graduate and professional) and scholarly activities within the School of Pharmacy.
It is anticipated that additional personnel, financial resources and functional space will be needed for the Department to achieve its missions, especially in light of the implementation of the Skills Laboratory. The faculty members continue to move the Department forward and are excited by the unit’s accomplishments and future potential. The 2006-2007 year and the coming fiscal year will stress all unit faculty members in different ways. Overall, however, the Department’s future for creativity and scholarly pursuits is perceived as extremely optimistic by everyone. It is noteworthy that the Dean and other Pharmacy Administrators, as well as the Office of the Provost, have been extremely supportive of the unit to reach five full-time faculty and to help garner research support and space to enable the Department to attain its future missions. Faculty motivation and enthusiasm remains exceptionally high and productivity, both quantitatively and qualitatively, continues to be significantly enhanced over previous years. With the positive changes that have occurred within the last two years and those that are planned within the Department, national and international recognition is rising.