The following
candidates have been nominated
for CSPS Member-At-Large:
Brief biographies of the
candidates are posted here and in the
Online Forums.
These positions will become effective
January 1st, 2004; and also at
that time,
Gordon McKay begins his term
of President.
Duties of the CSPS Executive
Council officers are outlined
in the
Bylaws.
David Dolphin, Ph.D.
David Dolphin is the
Vice-President, Technology
Development at Quadra Logic
Technologies and Professor of
Chemistry and the QLT/NSERC
Industrial Research Professor in
Photodynamic Technologies at the
University of British Columbia.
Before joining QLT, he was the
Acting Dean of Science at UBC
and he was the Acting V.P.
Research at UBC 1999-2000. He is
an internationally recognized
expert in the areas of porphyrin
chemistry and biochemistry and
has been instrumental in the
development of drugs for
photodynamic therapy. He is the
author and editor of eighteen
books on spectroscopy, chemistry
and biochemistry, has published
over 390 research papers, and
holds numerous patents. Dr.
Dolphin is a Fellow of the
Canadian Institute of Chemistry
and a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Chemistry. He was
elected a Guggenheim Fellow in
1980 and awarded a D.Sc. from
his alma mater of Nottingham
University in 1982. In 1990 he
was awarded the Gold Medal in
Health Sciences by the Science
Council of British Columbia, was
the 1993 recipient of the Syntex
Award of the Canadian Institute
of Chemistry and in the same
year he was the recipient of the
Bell-Canada Forum Award. He was
awarded an Izaak Walton Killam
Research Prize in 1996. He was
appointed a Fellow of the Royal
Society of Canada in 2001. He
recently received the Prix
Galien 2002, the Friesen Rygiel
Prize, and in 2002 was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society.
http://www.chem.ubc.ca/personnel/faculty/dolphin/index.shtml
Lakshmi P. Kotra, Ph.D.
Lakshmi Kotra is an assistant
professor at the Faculty of
Pharmacy and is cross-appointed
to the Department of Chemistry
at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Kotra is the Director and a
founding Executive Committee
member of the Molecular Design
and Information Technology
Center at the University of
Toronto, and founding member of
Toronto Area Drug Discovery
Discussion Group (TAD3). Dr.
Kotra received his Ph.D. from
the University of Georgia in
1997 and received postdoctoral
training at Wayne State
University before accepting the
faculty position at the
University of Toronto in 2000.
Dr. Kotra is a recipient of Rx&D
Health Research Foundation
Research Career award (2001-06),
and GlaxoSmithKline/CSPS Early
Career award in 2003. Dr. Kotra
serves on three editorial
boards, and one CIHR peer-review
committee. Dr. Kotra's research
interests focus in the areas of
drug design, medicinal
chemistry, understanding
protein/nucleic acid-small
molecule interactions and
structure-based chemogenomics,
and his research program is
funded by CIHR, Rx&D, CFI and
OIT.
http://www.phm.utoronto.ca/~pkotra/
Micheline Piquette, Ph.D.
Micheline Piquette is Associate
Professor in the University of
Toronto. She received her B.Sc.
and Ph.D. degrees from the
University of Alberta. She was
post doctorate fellow in
biopharmaceutics at the
University of California at San
Francisco and has been a faculty
member of the University of
Toronto since 1996. She has been
chair of the Pharmacogenetics &
Molecular Pharmacology Section
and a member of the Board of
Directors of the American
Society of Clinical Pharmacology
and Therapeutics. She has
received a 5-year Rx&D Health
Research Foundation/CIHR
Research Career Award. She was a
“Mentor of the Millennium” of
the Alberta Women’s Science
Network (2000). She has been a
recipient of the Piafsky Young
Investigator Award of the
Canadian Society of Clinical
Pharmacology (2002) and the
University of Alberta Horizon
Award (2003). Her investigations
are conducted in areas of
molecular pharmacokinetic and
cancer research and are funded
by the Canadian Institute of
Health Research.
http://phm.utoronto.ca/graduate/faculty/piquette.jsp
Jasmine Prucha, M.Sc.
Jasmine Prucha is currently
Director of Sales,
Pharmaceutical Division at
Gattefossé Canada Inc. She
joined the company in 1997 and
was named to her current
position in 2000. She has
Canada-wide responsibility for
specialty ingredients and
technologies used in the
pharmaceutical industry. Jasmine
has a B.Sc. and M.Sc. degree in
Food Science and Agricultural
Chemistry, both earned at McGill
University in Montreal. Her
master’s research focused on
protein chemistry and on the
isolation and characterization
of vegetable proteins. After
graduation, she spent three
years at McGill University as a
Research Assistant in the Animal
Science and Food Science
Departments. During this period,
she conducted independent
research, and helped supervising
undergraduate and graduate
student research laboratories.
Jasmine Prucha’s industrial
career began in 1989 when she
joined a specialty scientific
instruments company selling
thermal analytical and X-ray
diffraction instrumentation to
academic and industrial research
facilities. She has since held
sales positions in other
disciplines including specialty
chemicals, nutraceuticals,
cosmetic actives and
pharmaceutical excipients. She
draws from these experiences to
bridge knowledge from multiple
disciplines and enjoys working
with academic researchers in
faculties of pharmacy as well as
formulation scientists working
in industry in the areas of
developing new dosage forms and
new drug delivery technologies.
Jasmine is an active member of
CSPS and has been promoting the
society’s goal of fostering
scientific excellence and
innovation in Canada. Her
company is fully committed to
support Jasmine to help the
Society play a role in being a
strong voice for pharmaceutical
scientists in Canada. Her
personal goal is to help
increase membership in CSPS from
both the pharmaceutical and
biotechnology communities.
http://www.gattefosse.com/gattefosse/maincame_canada.htm
Mahiuddin Talukdar, Ph.D.
Mahiuddin Talukdar is Senior
Research Scientist at
Pharmascience Inc. He received
B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in
Pharmacy from the University of
Dhaka in Bangladesh, and M.Sc.
(1991) and Ph.D. (1997) degrees
in Pharmaceutical Science from
the Vrije Unversiteit Brussel
and Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven, respectively, in
Belgium. He was an Assistant
Professor of Pharmaceutics in
the University of Asia Pacific,
Dhaka, Bangladesh, and then Post
doctorate Research Fellow in the
University of Toronto. He was
Analyst-Supervisor at
Wyeth-Ayerst Canada Inc. before
accepting his present post. He
is author of 14 research
articles and abstracts in the
area of controlled-release oral
drug delivery system development
published in refereed journals.
http://www.pharmascience.com
Kishor M. Wasan, Ph.D.
Kishor M. Wasan is an Associate
Professor & Chair of
Pharmaceutics and National
Director of the Canadian Summer
Student Research Program at the
University of British Columbia.
He has published over 80
peer-review articles and 120
abstracts in the area of
lipid-based drug delivery and
lipoprotein-hydrophobic drug
interactions. Dr. Wasan was
awarded the 2001 AAPS New
Investigator Award/Grant in
Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutics
Technologies sponsored by Pfizer
Central Research and the 2002
Association of Faculties of
Pharmacy of Canada AstraZeneca
New Investigator Research Award.
Furthermore, he received the
2001/2002 University of British
Columbia Killam Teaching Prize
in Pharmaceutical Sciences. In
January 2001, with funding from
the Merck Company Foundation, he
established a Canadian Summer
Student Research Program for
Undergraduate Pharmacy Students.
Dr. Wasan's research is
supported by several grants from
The Canadian Institutes of
Health Research, several
pharmaceutical companies and the
National Cancer Institute of
Canada-Clinical Trials Group.
http://www.wasanlab.ubc.ca/drwasan/drwasan.htm
Elected As President of CSPS
Gordon McKay, Ph.D.
Gordon McKay received his BSc
and Ph.D. degrees in
biochemistry from the University
of Saskatchewan. After a brief
postdoctoral training period in
pharmaceutical science, he was
appointed as a research
associate and adjunct professor
of pharmacy in the College of
Pharmacy at the University of
Saskatchewan and a principal
investigator in the Drug
Metabolism, Drug Disposition
Research Group headed by Dr.
Kamal K. Midha at this same
institution. The research group
received the first program grant
awarded by the Medical Research
Council to a College of Pharmacy
and the first ever awarded to
the University of Saskatchewan.
This research was renewed for a
total of 11 years after which
the group began to focus on
collaborative research with the
pharmaceutical industry and has
continued in this regard for
almost 25 years. Dr. McKay was
awarded fellowship in the
American Association of
Pharmaceutical Sciences in 1994
and was one of the founding
members of the Canadian Society
of Pharmaceutical Sciences on
whose executive he now holds a
position. He is a scientific
organizer for numerous
scientific meetings including
the Bioanaltyical Validation
meetings, the Tandem Mass
Spectrometry Workshops held
annually for the last 15 years
and BioInternational. He has
served on the editorial board
for J.Pharm.Sci., has been a
member of the Pharmaceutical
Sciences review committee for
MRC, and has served on numerous
University Boards and
Committees. Dr. McKay has
published more than 165 original
scientific publications and
authored more than 200
scientific presentations.
Currently he is the chief
executive officer for a new not
for profit research institute at
the University of Saskatchewan
which is focused on
collaborative research with the
pharmaceutical industry aimed at
discovering, developing and
training in the areas of
pharmaceutical science.
http://www.pharmalytics.ca/html/ContactUs/contact.htm
Gordon Mckay’s Statement On The
Directions Of CSPS
As the president of the Canadian
Society of Pharmaceutical
Sciences, (CSPS) it would be my
intention to continue to build
on the excellence that our
annual scientific meeting has
achieved and our journal,
"Journal of Pharmacy and
Pharmaaceutical Sciences",
has reached, and to foster
growth in our newer initiatives
including the continued support
for our early career scientists
and students. The establishment
of local interest groups and
chapters also has my support as
we move forward. Over the past
seven years, we have had support
from all of our stakeholders
including scientists from
industry, academia, and
regulatory agencies. This must
continue and be expanded. We
have a healthy membership in
terms of total numbers each year
but it tends to be transient
with different members appearing
each year. I intend to establish
a membership committee to make
sure that our members stay with
us and that CSPS will continue
to grow as more scientists
recognize the importance of
belonging to the society. Our
relationships with sister
organizations are also very
healthy and expanding. This is
an area I intend to further work
in terms of true cooperation
especially with the Association
of Faculties of Pharmaceutical
Sciences, (AFPC) and with other
societies, intending to hold
joint activities. I fully
endorse the practice of having
the annual meeting occur in
different locations in Canada
and view this as an opportunity
to highlight our "champions" of
pharmaceutical science as we
move from east to west across
Canada. I look forward to an
exciting tenure as president and
shall welcome and hope for input
from all members.
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