Departmental Newsletter Fall 2012
Chair’s GreetingHappy Holidays and best wishes of the New Year! We are on to the third edition of the biannual E-Newsletter. Fall is a very special time of the year at Northeastern. New undergraduate and graduate students join our programs and there is so much excitement in the beginning of the academic year. It is also a time for Thanksgiving and the Holiday season, which allows all of to reflect on the year gone by.
We have again had an amazing start to the 2012-2013 academic year. The School of Pharmacy celebrated the 50th anniversary of merger between the New England College of Pharmacy and Northeastern University. The grand celebration, which included lab tours and presentation of research posters, was on November 5th. A video celebrating the School of Pharmacy’s history and recent successes is included in the E-Newsletters as a link.
We are extremely pleased to recruit four new faculty members to department in the Fall semester. Dr. Raymond Booth, a Northeastern pharmacy alum, returned back as a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences with joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Center for Drug Discovery. Dr. Booth was the University of Florida at Gainesville. Dr. Jong-Han Kim joined the department as an Assistant Professor of Toxicology. He received his PhD from the Ohio State University and did post-doctoral work at Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Mark Mucko was recruited in the special newly-created part-time position of Professor of Practice. Dr. Murcko has more than 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical industry, with the latest as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Murcko is also actively involved in the department’s initiatives to further develop academic-industrial partnerships. Lastly, Ms. Nancy Waggner, also a Northeastern alumna, joined the department as an Associate Coop/Internship Coordinator, to assist with the experiential component in both the BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences and our graduate programs. Nancy is working with students and employers and will reach out to many of you in the future.
We now have settled in our new home at 140 The Fenway Building. Our faculty, postdoctoral associates, and graduate students are very productive and they continue to receive many awards and grants. Professor Alex Makriyannis received the American Chemical Society (ACS) Medicinal Chemistry Division Award and was induced in to the ACS Hall of Fame. Professor Vladimir Torchilin received the Alex D. Bangham Award for Outstanding Contributions in Liposome Research. Professors Heather Clark and Richard Deth received grants from DARPA and prestigious private foundations. Dr. Arun Iyer, an Assistant Research Professor in my group, received the Tsuneji T. Nagai Award at the Controlled Release Society meeting in July. Drs. Kevin Cash and Tim Ruckh, both doing post-doctoral research under Professor Clark, received the NIH’s F32 Post-Doctoral Fellowship. Our doctoral students, Jing Xu, Shardool Jain, Dipti Deshpande, Namita Dodwadkar, and Brendan Harmon, have received prestigious awards from various societies.
Most importantly, we would like to hear from you. Please don’t hesitate to contact me directly at m.amiji@neu.edu by email or 617-373-3137 by phone.
Sincerely,
Mansoor M. Amiji, PhD, RPh
Distinguished Professor and Chairman