Pharmacy Ph.D. Alumni Reunite in Texas

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Mercer University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences held a reception for its Ph.D. alumni at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) in San Antonio, Texas, on October 31. The reception was attended by some 30 alumni and current Ph.D. students.

H.W. “Ted” Matthews, dean of the College, addressed the gathering to re-affirm his strong support for the graduate program. He also networked with the alumni to discuss what they are doing in the pharmaceutical industry and to offer some suggestions for areas of pharmaceutical research that are important to the future of the profession.

“I was delighted to see the graduates from the Ph.D. program and was quite impressed that they had jobs in very reputable and prestigious pharmaceutical companies,” Matthews said.

Mercer’s Ph.D. alumni work primarily in the pharmaceutical industry in companies like CibaVision, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Solvay, Novartis and Wyeth; others work in academia or at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Graduate pharmaceutical sciences students at Mercer are actively involved in the various activities of the AAPS, such as programming and moderating the roundtable sessions at the annual meeting and National Biotech Meeting, abstract screening and student-related activities. The following alumni and students have been involved with AAPS:

Naveen Bejugam, Ph.D. ’06, was a student representative for the pharmaceutical technology section from November 2005 until February 2006.
Sanjay Gayakwad, third-year graduate student in pharmaceutics, is the current student representative for the pharmaceutical technology section, and serves on the student post-doc outreach and development committee. He was a moderator for the roundtable session entitled “Grantsmanship for the Pharmaceutical Scientist” at this year’s annual meeting.
Sameer Late, third-year graduate student in pharmaceutics, served as the student representative for the pharmaceutics and drug delivery section from November 2004 until November 2006. He was a moderator for the roundtable session entitled “Transdermal Delivery of Proteins” at the National Biotech Meeting meeting, July 2006, in Boston.
Viswatej Vemulapalli, also a third-year graduate student in pharmaceutics, is the current student representative on the pharmaceutics and drug delivery section from November 2006 until November 2007.