Kim Janda, Ph.D.
Dr. Janda currently holds the rank of the Ely R. Callaway, Jr. Chaired Professor in the Departments of Chemistry, Immunology and Microbial Science at The Scripps Research Institute and is the Director of the Worm Institute of Research and Medicine (WIRM) at The Scripps Research Institute. He was born in Cleveland Ohio in 1957 wherein 1975 he matriculated to the University of South Florida and obtained a BS in Clinical Chemistry in 1980 and a doctoral degree from the University of Arizona (1984) in natural product total synthesis. Janda’s current research efforts straddle the interface of chemical biology. Janda is a Skaggs Scholar within the Skaggs Institute of Chemical Biology also at The Scripps Research Institute. He is a current member of the NIH study section Vaccines against Microbial Diseases. He also holds the positions of Associate Editor of Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry and PloS ONE. Janda and his group at the Scripps Research Institute California have made groundbreaking progress through the development of an antiheroin vaccine.
Brian Shoichet, Ph.D.
Dr. Shoichet serves as a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UC, San Francisco. From 1996 to 2002, he joined the faculty at Northwestern University in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology & Biological Chemistry, and was recruited back to UCSF in 2003. His postdoctoral research focused on protein structure and stability with Brian Matthews at the Institute of Molecular Biology in Eugene, Oregon, as a Damon Runyon Fellow. He received his Ph.D. for work with Tack Kuntz on molecular docking in 1991 from UCSF. His current work focuses on taking computational approaches to develop an opioid that has potent analgesic properties with reduced addictive potential. Research in the Shoichet Lab seeks to bring chemical reagents to biology, combining computational simulation and experiment. Broadly, the Shoichet Lab adopts a protein-centric approach that seeks new ligands to complement protein structures. Using a ligand-centric approach, his lab seeks new targets for established drugs and reagents. Whereas this lacks the physical foundation of the structure-based research program, it returns to an older, pharmacological view of biological relationships, bringing to it a quantitative model. A focus for both approaches is ligand discovery against G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs).
Scott Mosley, PharmD
Dr. Mosley has joined the faculty of the Titus Department of Clinical Pharmacy as assistant professor of clinical pharmacy. His research is focused in pharmacogenomics implementation, which incorporates genetic information with other clinical factors to optimize drug selection. He received a B.S. in Biochemical/Biophysical Science from the University of Houston in 2006, then worked as an analytical chemist in a core pharmacology lab for MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. He received his PharmD degree from the University of Texas in 2013, and then took a position as a pharmacist with MD Anderson Cancer Center. He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy in the Center for Pharmacogenomics under the mentorship of Larisa Cavallari, PharmD. During that time he carried out a research protocol to assess the value of utilizing CYP2D6 genotype to guide opioid selection for patients with cancer pain.
Rosalie Pacula, Ph.D.
Dr. Pacula is a senior economist at the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. She serves as director of RAND's BING Center for Health Economics and co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. Her research at RAND over the last 20 years has largely focused on issues related to illegal or imperfect markets (health care markets, insurance markets, illicit drug markets), measurement of the size of these markets, the impact they have on behavior (suppliers and consumers), and the effectiveness of policy interventions at targeting behavior within these markets. More recently her work has shifted to evaluating the impact of recent opioid policies in the US. She has explored the influence of buprenorphine diffusion, OxyContin reformulation, insurance expansion, medical marijuana and naloxone distribution laws on opioid related harm. She has also done work examining the size of the market for illicit opioids. Pacula has been a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) since 1997, serves on the editorial board of several journals, and is a scientific reviewer for the National Institutes of Health's HSOD committee. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Duke University.
Melissa Durham, PharmD
Dr. Durham is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Southern California (USC) School of Pharmacy. She received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree, completed a residency in Community Pharmacy Practice, and has earned her Master’s degree in Academic Medicine, all from USC. Dr. Durham is a clinical pharmacist at the USC Pain Center in the Department of Anesthesiology, where she established a pharmacist-run pain medication management service. She is a Board Certified Ambulatory Care Pharmacist and a Diplomat of the Academy of Integrative Pain Management. In addition, she is a practicing community pharmacist.
Chitra Mandyam, Ph.D.
Dr. Mandyam graduated from the College of Pharmacy at the University of Houston with a PhD in pharmacological sciences and continued her postdoctoral research at the department of psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center in neuroscience with a focus on addiction research. She later moved to San Diego, and after her tenure at the Scripps Research Institute, she moved her laboratory to University of California San Diego where she is an associate professor with joint appointments at the department of anesthesiology and Skaggs School of Pharmacy. She is also a research biologist at the VA San Diego Healthcare System. The general goal of her laboratory is to understand the relationship between brain structure and function using state-of-the-art molecular and cellular approaches to study high-level mental functions such as illicit drug/alcohol taking and seeking. Her lab employs genetic, pharmacological, electrophysiological and histochemical techniques, and behavioral paradigms for understanding the role of neural stem cells and myelinating oligodendrocytes in neuropathology produced by illicit drug/alcohol use. These studies in her lab may reveal novel neuroprotective strategies to reduce propensity of relapse to drug use. Dr. Mandyam is a member at Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior Study Section at NIH and a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and serves as a reviewer of several journals.
Richard Z. Fond, PharmD
Dr. Fond attended UCLA as an undergraduate before being admitted to the doctor of pharmacy program at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy. He practiced in community pharmacy settings for forty-one years, where he often mentored students, including pharmacy interns and technicians. He owned and operated the Glenoaks Rx Pharmacy in Burbank, CA from 1972 until 2006. From 1985 to 1992 he partnered in the ownership of Karen Pharmacy, also located in Burbank. Dr. Fond served on the board of the Pharmacists’ Society of the San Fernando Valley for fifteen years and as an officer for ten years. In 2015, Dr. Fond was granted a life membership in The California Pharmacist Association at its annual convention, at which he was a frequent delegate. In 2015 he was also honored by the California State Board of Pharmacy in recognition of his 50 years of registration and service to the public. Dr. Fond proposed to the Pharmacy Board at its March meeting this year that it publish in its online newsletter, The Script, an article that he had written titled “I Am a Drug Addict,” (based on the narcotic withdrawal symptoms he experienced after only one week post-surgery from the dosing of a medically prescribed opioid) as one means of helping to raise the awareness of licensees regarding the national crisis of opioid addiction, through the telling of his personal story. More information on his experience can be read online here.