Faculty News & Notes

Editor’s Note: Faculty Notes are offered to Interactions readers for two reasons: (1) to provide insight into the impressive scope of teaching and research endeavors in which College of Pharmacy faculty are engaged; and (2) as a means for alumni and friends to keep up with the activities of College basic and clinical sciences faculty. The email addresses of College faculty and alumni are appended at the end of each update to facilitate communication between Interactions readers and the individuals whose activities are cited. DG

Gordon L.Amidon

Charles R. Walgreen Jr. Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences Gordon L. Amidon, PhD’71, was named the 2005 winner of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Distinguished Pharmaceutical Scientist Award. The Award, issued alternate years since 1989, is the most prestigious honor AAPS bestows. It hails the accomplishments of an individual whose research has significantly advanced the frontier of pharmaceutical sciences, as demonstrated by contributions that have important scientific significance on their own merits, and have stimulated research investigations by others. Among Amidon’s many accomplishments as an educator and researcher over the past 33 years is his laboratory’s seminal research on oral drug absorption. This research established the basis for a set of regulatory standards, known as the Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS), which has become the de facto reference for bioequivalence standards used by government agencies and pharmaceutical firms worldwide. In addition to being a professor at the College, Amidon is director of the College’s Center for Molecular Drug Targeting. E-mail: glamidon @umich.edu.

Rosemary R. Berardi,

Professor of Pharmacy Rosemary R. Berardi, PharmD’68, was named the 2005 recipient of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Education Award. This prestigious award recognizes an ACCP member who has made substantial and outstanding contributions to clinical pharmacy education at either the undergraduate or postgraduate level.

“For more than 30 years, Professor Berardi has been one of America’s leading clinical pharmacy educators,” notes Dean Frank J. Ascione. “Her resolute insistence that pharmacists maintain the highest professional standards at all times has left a lasting imprint on every student who has come in contact with her. I can think of no individual more deserving of this award than she.”

This award will be presented during a special ceremony at the Oct. 23 opening session of ACCP’s 2005 annual meeting in San Francisco.

In June, Berardi chaired a meeting of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Self-Care Institute (SCI), held in Boston, Mass. Professor of Pharmacy Leslie Shimp, BSPharm’74, PharmD’76, and Clinical Associate Professor Tami Remington, PharmD’91 — both members of the SCI advisory committee — and Clinical Assistant Professor Kristin Klein also attended the June meeting. E-mail: rberardi@umich.edu, lshimp@umich.edu, remingtn@umich.edu, kriklein@umich.edu.

In September, Imad Btaiche was promoted from clinical assistant professor to clinical associate professor. Btaiche and Clinical Associate Professor César Alaniz were co-authors of the article, “Relationship Between Hyperglycemia and Infection in Critically Ill Patients,” appearing in Pharmacotherapy 2005; 25:963-76. In addition, Btaiche authored “Chronic Complications Associated with Parenteral Nutrition,” appearing in Pharmacotherapy Self- Assessment Program (PSAP-V), 5th edition, published by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy; 2005: 163- 80. E-mail: imadb@med.umich.edu, calaniz@umich.edu.

Heather Carlson

The July 11, 2005 issue of Chemical and Engineering News (CEN) ran an extended story on the recent achievements of research teams led by John G. Searle Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry Heather Carlson and Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Associate Professor of Internal Medicine Shaomeng Wang. Their labs, operating independently of each other, have recently released two huge online databases encompassing all known protein-ligand complex structures and their binding information. The databases were painstakingly assembled from approximately 6,000 papers referenced by Protein Data Bank (PDB) listings. PDB, the world’s repository for large biomolecule structural information, currently contains approximately 31,500 protein structures, with thousands added every year.

Carlson’s Binding Mother Of All Databases (MOAD) and Wang’s PDBbind “are an order of magnitude larger than any other of their kind, each with structure and binding data for more than 1,000 complexes,” CEN noted. “While they’re similar, Binding MOAD and PDBbind have different features that complement each other.”

The databases, which are free to academic researchers and nonprofit agencies, spare scientists the time-consuming task of identifying a few potentially useful structures from library searches spanning thousands of research papers reaching back decades. With the databases developed by Carlson and Wang, scientists who use computational strategies to develop new drugs for HIV, cancer, and other diseases can zero in faster on promising protein sites.

Shaomeng Wang

“What Heather and Shaomeng have done is an incredible service to all of us,” observed Alexander Tropsha, professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Interestingly, Carlson and Wang decided to take on a massive database building project without knowing the other was similarly engaged. It wasn’t until one of Wang’s graduate students described PDBbind during an oral exam Carlson co-presided over, that the two professors realized they were pursuing the same goal.

“The CEN story is well-deserved recognition by the chemical/ pharmaceutical community for the efforts and innovation of two of our faculty and their graduate students,” notes Ronald W. Woodard, chair and professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry. “They’ve not only advanced science tremendously, they’ve brought national and international honor and distinction to our College.”

E-mail: carlsonh@umich.edu, shaomeng@umich.edu, rww@ umich.edu.

Medicinal Chemistry Professor James K. Coward has returned from a 12-month combined administrative/sabbatical leave largely devoted to working with graduate students in his research group, and writing papers derived from PhD thesis research collaborations with the Medicinal Chemistry Department graduates he has mentored, Anjali Srinivasan Ganguli, PhD’04, David Bartley, PhD’04, and John Tomsho, PhD’05. “After more than six years as an administrator, it’s been great to return to the basics of teaching and research, the things that provide the stimulation and excitement that led me to decide on a career in academia,” Coward says. During his leave, Coward was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). E-mail: jkcoward@umich.edu.

John C. Drach, professor of medicinal chemistry in the College of Pharmacy and professor of biologic and materials sciences in the School of Dentistry, recently co-authored the publication, “Amino Acid Ester Prodrugs of the Antiviral Agent 2- Bromo-5,6-Dichloro-1-(ß-D-Ribofuranosyl)benzimidazole as Potential Substrates of hPEPT1 Transporter,” with Leroy B. Townsend, Albert B. Prescott Professor Emeritus of Medicinal Chemistry, and Charles R. Walgreen Jr. Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences Gordon L. Amidon. The paper appeared in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 48: 1274-1277, 2005. E-mail: jcdrach@umich.edu, ltownsen@umich.edu, glamidon@umich.edu.

Social and Administrative Sciences Professor Duane M. Kirking, who had planned to retire in 2005, has returned to the College on a part-time basis to assume the role of director of The Center for Medication Use, Policy, and Economics (CMUPE). Kirking’s CMUPE appointment is for two years. He will also retain his faculty appointment as professor of Social and Administrative Sciences.

“Duane’s decision to return is a reflection of his commitment to the College and to our goal of sustained excellence in the Social and Administrative Sciences,” says Dean Ascione. “Duane is an internationally respected educator and researcher, and we are indeed fortunate to retain him.” E-mail: dkirking@umich.edu, fascione@umich.edu.

David Nau has been promoted from assistant professor to associate professor of Social and Administrative Sciences. Nau joined the College in fall 2001. E-mail: dnau@umich.edu.

Professor Emeritus of Social and Administrative Sciences James W. Richards, BSPharm’55, has been reappointed to the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Board of Directors. He has been the pharmacist representative on the BCBS Board continuously since 1976. During 2005-2006, Richards will serve on the Board Provider Relations and Governmental Affairs Committees, and will chair the Audit and Physician and Professional Providers Contract Advisory Committee. E-mail: jwrich@umich.edu.

David Sherman

John G. Searle Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Director of the Center for Chemical Genomics at the U-M Life Sciences Institute David H. Sherman was coauthor of the articles: “Utilizing the Power of Microbial Genetics to Bridge the Gap Between the Promise and the Application of Marine Natural Products,” appearing in Chem- BioChem 2005; 6:960-978; and “Biochemical Investigation of Pikromycin Bio-synthesis Employing Native Penta- and Hexaketide Chain Elongation Intermediates,” appearing in the Journal of American Chemical Society 2005;127:8441-8452. Sherman also received a National Institutes of Health grant to perform a molecular analysis of a new virulence-associated siderophore from Bacillus anthracis. The primary objective of this research investigation is to characterize the structure of a new virulence-associated siderophore identified recently from Bacillus anthracis, and to develop one or more enzymes involved in siderophore biosynthesis as a new target for drug therapy against the pathogen.

In June, Sherman gave two invited presentations, one at the University of California, San Diego, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the second as a participant in the Gordon Research Conference on Mycotoxins and Phycotoxins held at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. The first presentation was Professor of Pharmacy titled, “New Natural Product Therapeutics”; the second, “Harnessing Metabolic Potential from Diverse Toxin Biosynthetic Systems.” E-mail: davidhs@umich.edu.

David E. Smith, chair and professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, gave an invited presentation at the Aug. 14-18 BioMedical Transporters 2005 meeting in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The focus of the meeting was on membrane transporters and their applications to the treatment of human diseases, specifically, how transporters may be applied to drug discovery, how the structural information from membrane transporters can be applied to the rational design of therapeutic drugs, and how transporters in various organs affect drug metabolism. Smith discussed his research on the “Role and Relevance of PEPT2 in the Kidney and Brain: In Vivo Implications for Drug Delivery and Disposition.” E-mail: smithb@umich.edu.

Clinical Associate Professor Roberta M. Tankanow retired from the University of Michigan effective June 2005 after a 27- year career. As a result of her studies on the pharmacokinetics of herbal products and FDA-approved medications, she became a nationally recognized leader in the field of investigational drug research. E-mail: robertat@umich.edu.

Professor of Pharmacy Cary E. Johnson, PharmD’72, receives a plaque from Dean Frank J.Ascione commemorating Johnson’s more than 30 years of service as a PharmD preceptor. The honor came during the awards portion of a July 15, 2005 Experiential Training Programsponsored symposium. [See the story on pages 10-11.] An unusually large percentage of the PharmD students Johnson has advised on PharmD investigations projects over the years have presented their findings at professional meetings and/or published their findings in peer-reviewed journals. In April, Johnson received the College’s 2004-2005 Teaching Excellence Award. E-mail: cejohn@umich.edu.

		Faculty News & Notes Editor’s Note: Faculty Notes are offered to Interactions readers for two reasons: (1) to provide insight into the impressive scope of teaching and research endeavors in which College of Pharmacy faculty are engaged; and (2) as a means for alumni and friends to keep up with the activities of College basic and clinical sciences faculty. The email addresses of College faculty and alumni are appended at the end of each update to facilitate communication between Interactions readers and the individuals whose activities are cited. DG Gordon L.Amidon Charles R. Walgreen Jr. Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences Gordon L. Amidon, PhD’71, was named the 2005 winner of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Distinguished Pharmaceutical Scientist Award. The Award, issued alternate years since 1989, is the most prestigious honor AAPS bestows. It hails the accomplishments of an individual whose research has significantly advanced the frontier of pharmaceutical sciences, as demonstrated by contributions that have important scientific significance on their own merits, and have stimulated research investigations by others. Among Amidon’s many accomplishments as an educator and researcher over the past 33 years is his laboratory’s seminal research on oral drug absorption. This research established the basis for a set of regulatory standards, known as the Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS), which has become the de facto reference for bioequivalence standards used by government agencies and pharmaceutical firms worldwide. In addition to being a professor at the College, Amidon is director of the College’s Center for Molecular Drug Targeting. E-mail: glamidon @umich.edu. Rosemary R. Berardi, Professor of Pharmacy Rosemary R. Berardi, PharmD’68, was named the 2005 recipient of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Education Award. This prestigious award recognizes an ACCP member who has made substantial and outstanding contributions to clinical pharmacy education at either the undergraduate or postgraduate level. “For more than 30 years, Professor Berardi has been one of America’s leading clinical pharmacy educators,” notes Dean Frank J. Ascione. “Her resolute insistence that pharmacists maintain the highest professional standards at all times has left a lasting imprint on every student who has come in contact with her. I can think of no individual more deserving of this award than she.” This award will be presented during a special ceremony at the Oct. 23 opening session of ACCP’s 2005 annual meeting in San Francisco. In June, Berardi chaired a meeting of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Self-Care Institute (SCI), held in Boston, Mass. Professor of Pharmacy Leslie Shimp, BSPharm’74, PharmD’76, and Clinical Associate Professor Tami Remington, PharmD’91 — both members of the SCI advisory committee — and Clinical Assistant Professor Kristin Klein also attended the June meeting. E-mail: rberardi@umich.edu, lshimp@umich.edu, remingtn@umich.edu, kriklein@umich.edu. In September, Imad Btaiche was promoted from clinical assistant professor to clinical associate professor. Btaiche and Clinical Associate Professor César Alaniz were co-authors of the article, “Relationship Between Hyperglycemia and Infection in Critically Ill Patients,” appearing in Pharmacotherapy 2005; 25:963-76. In addition, Btaiche authored “Chronic Complications Associated with Parenteral Nutrition,” appearing in Pharmacotherapy Self- Assessment Program (PSAP-V), 5th edition, published by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy; 2005: 163- 80. E-mail: imadb@med.umich.edu, calaniz@umich.edu. Heather Carlson The July 11, 2005 issue of Chemical and Engineering News (CEN) ran an extended story on the recent achievements of research teams led by John G. Searle Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry Heather Carlson and Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Associate Professor of Internal Medicine Shaomeng Wang. Their labs, operating independently of each other, have recently released two huge online databases encompassing all known protein-ligand complex structures and their binding information. The databases were painstakingly assembled from approximately 6,000 papers referenced by Protein Data Bank (PDB) listings. PDB, the world’s repository for large biomolecule structural information, currently contains approximately 31,500 protein structures, with thousands added every year. Carlson’s Binding Mother Of All Databases (MOAD) and Wang’s PDBbind “are an order of magnitude larger than any other of their kind, each with structure and binding data for more than 1,000 complexes,” CEN noted. “While they’re similar, Binding MOAD and PDBbind have different features that complement each other.” The databases, which are free to academic researchers and nonprofit agencies, spare scientists the time-consuming task of identifying a few potentially useful structures from library searches spanning thousands of research papers reaching back decades. With the databases developed by Carlson and Wang, scientists who use computational strategies to develop new drugs for HIV, cancer, and other diseases can zero in faster on promising protein sites. Shaomeng Wang “What Heather and Shaomeng have done is an incredible service to all of us,” observed Alexander Tropsha, professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Interestingly, Carlson and Wang decided to take on a massive database building project without knowing the other was similarly engaged. It wasn’t until one of Wang’s graduate students described PDBbind during an oral exam Carlson co-presided over, that the two professors realized they were pursuing the same goal. “The CEN story is well-deserved recognition by the chemical/ pharmaceutical community for the efforts and innovation of two of our faculty and their graduate students,” notes Ronald W. Woodard, chair and professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry. “They’ve not only advanced science tremendously, they’ve brought national and international honor and distinction to our College.” E-mail: carlsonh@umich.edu, shaomeng@umich.edu, rww@ umich.edu. Medicinal Chemistry Professor James K. Coward has returned from a 12-month combined administrative/sabbatical leave largely devoted to working with graduate students in his research group, and writing papers derived from PhD thesis research collaborations with the Medicinal Chemistry Department graduates he has mentored, Anjali Srinivasan Ganguli, PhD’04, David Bartley, PhD’04, and John Tomsho, PhD’05. “After more than six years as an administrator, it’s been great to return to the basics of teaching and research, the things that provide the stimulation and excitement that led me to decide on a career in academia,” Coward says. During his leave, Coward was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). E-mail: jkcoward@umich.edu. John C. Drach, professor of medicinal chemistry in the College of Pharmacy and professor of biologic and materials sciences in the School of Dentistry, recently co-authored the publication, “Amino Acid Ester Prodrugs of the Antiviral Agent 2- Bromo-5,6-Dichloro-1-(ß-D-Ribofuranosyl)benzimidazole as Potential Substrates of hPEPT1 Transporter,” with Leroy B. Townsend, Albert B. Prescott Professor Emeritus of Medicinal Chemistry, and Charles R. Walgreen Jr. Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences Gordon L. Amidon. The paper appeared in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 48: 1274-1277, 2005. E-mail: jcdrach@umich.edu, ltownsen@umich.edu, glamidon@umich.edu. Social and Administrative Sciences Professor Duane M. Kirking, who had planned to retire in 2005, has returned to the College on a part-time basis to assume the role of director of The Center for Medication Use, Policy, and Economics (CMUPE). Kirking’s CMUPE appointment is for two years. He will also retain his faculty appointment as professor of Social and Administrative Sciences. “Duane’s decision to return is a reflection of his commitment to the College and to our goal of sustained excellence in the Social and Administrative Sciences,” says Dean Ascione. “Duane is an internationally respected educator and researcher, and we are indeed fortunate to retain him.” E-mail: dkirking@umich.edu, fascione@umich.edu. David Nau has been promoted from assistant professor to associate professor of Social and Administrative Sciences. Nau joined the College in fall 2001. E-mail: dnau@umich.edu. Professor Emeritus of Social and Administrative Sciences James W. Richards, BSPharm’55, has been reappointed to the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Board of Directors. He has been the pharmacist representative on the BCBS Board continuously since 1976. During 2005-2006, Richards will serve on the Board Provider Relations and Governmental Affairs Committees, and will chair the Audit and Physician and Professional Providers Contract Advisory Committee. E-mail: jwrich@umich.edu. David Sherman John G. Searle Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Director of the Center for Chemical Genomics at the U-M Life Sciences Institute David H. Sherman was coauthor of the articles: “Utilizing the Power of Microbial Genetics to Bridge the Gap Between the Promise and the Application of Marine Natural Products,” appearing in Chem- BioChem 2005; 6:960-978; and “Biochemical Investigation of Pikromycin Bio-synthesis Employing Native Penta- and Hexaketide Chain Elongation Intermediates,” appearing in the Journal of American Chemical Society 2005;127:8441-8452. Sherman also received a National Institutes of Health grant to perform a molecular analysis of a new virulence-associated siderophore from Bacillus anthracis. The primary objective of this research investigation is to characterize the structure of a new virulence-associated siderophore identified recently from Bacillus anthracis, and to develop one or more enzymes involved in siderophore biosynthesis as a new target for drug therapy against the pathogen. In June, Sherman gave two invited presentations, one at the University of California, San Diego, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the second as a participant in the Gordon Research Conference on Mycotoxins and Phycotoxins held at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. The first presentation was Professor of Pharmacy titled, “New Natural Product Therapeutics”; the second, “Harnessing Metabolic Potential from Diverse Toxin Biosynthetic Systems.” E-mail: davidhs@umich.edu. David E. Smith, chair and professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, gave an invited presentation at the Aug. 14-18 BioMedical Transporters 2005 meeting in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The focus of the meeting was on membrane transporters and their applications to the treatment of human diseases, specifically, how transporters may be applied to drug discovery, how the structural information from membrane transporters can be applied to the rational design of therapeutic drugs, and how transporters in various organs affect drug metabolism. Smith discussed his research on the “Role and Relevance of PEPT2 in the Kidney and Brain: In Vivo Implications for Drug Delivery and Disposition.” E-mail: smithb@umich.edu. Clinical Associate Professor Roberta M. Tankanow retired from the University of Michigan effective June 2005 after a 27- year career. As a result of her studies on the pharmacokinetics of herbal products and FDA-approved medications, she became a nationally recognized leader in the field of investigational drug research. E-mail: robertat@umich.edu. Professor of Pharmacy Cary E. Johnson, PharmD’72, receives a plaque from Dean Frank J.Ascione commemorating Johnson’s more than 30 years of service as a PharmD preceptor. The honor came during the awards portion of a July 15, 2005 Experiential Training Programsponsored symposium. [See the story on pages 10-11.] An unusually large percentage of the PharmD students Johnson has advised on PharmD investigations projects over the years have presented their findings at professional meetings and/or published their findings in peer-reviewed journals. In April, Johnson received the College’s 2004-2005 Teaching Excellence Award. E-mail: cejohn@umich.edu.
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