2022 ASPET Fellows

The ASPET Council is pleased to announce the 2022 class of fellows. Selection as a Fellow of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (FASPET) is an honor bestowed to our most distinguished members. Fellows are recognized for their meritorious efforts to advance pharmacology, through their scientific achievements, mentorship, and service to the Society. An abbreviated bio is listed below. To learn more about each of the 2022 ASPET Fellows, visit https://bit.ly/3EwjpBX.

ASPET Fellows Class of 2022

Katerina Akassoglou, PhD

Katerina Akassoglou earned a BSc degree in biology and a PhD in neuroimmunology at the Hellenic Pasteur Institute and the University of Athens, Greece. She was trained in neuropathology at the University of Vienna before performing her postdoctoral work at the Rockefeller University and New York University. She started her laboratory as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego where she was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. She is now a Senior Investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, a Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco (USCF), and the founder and Director of the Center of Neurovascular Brain Immunology at Gladstone and UCSF.

Wayne L. Backes, PhD

Wayne Backes received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Western Maryland College, his PhD in biochemistry from West Virginia University, and completed postdoctoral studies in pharmacology at the University of Connecticut Health Center, under the direction of John B. Schenkman. He joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor at Louisiana State University Medical Center – New Orleans in 1984, and is currently the Joseph M. Moerschbaecher, PhD Professor of Pharmacology and the Associate Dean for Research for the School of Medicine at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center – New Orleans.

Mary-Ann Bjornsti, PhD

Mary-Ann Bjornsti is Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), and Associate Director for Translational Research in the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center. She received her PhD from the University of Minnesota in Genetics and subsequently pursued a Fogarty Fellowship at the Biozentrum in Basel, Switzerland, where she studied bacterial nucleoid structure. She then moved to Harvard University where she was a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. James Wang and pioneered the use of the genetically tractable yeast model system to investigate the mechanism of action of DNA topoisomerase I and chemotherapeutics that target this enzyme. In 1989, she moved to Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Kathryn A. Cunningham, PhD

Kathryn A. Cunningham received her B.A. in psychology/ philosophy from the University of St. Thomas in Houston and her PhD in neuropharmacology from the University of South Carolina in Columbia. She is currently the Chauncey Leake Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, Director of the Center for Addiction Research, and Vice Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the John Sealy School of Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas.

Martha I. Dávila-García, PhD

Martha Dávila-García received her BS in Biology from Slippery Rock University in 1982, and a master’s and PhD degree in Biology from New York University (NYU) in 1986 and 1989, respectively. She went on to do a Postdoctoral Fellowship on pharmacology at the University of California, Irvine with Frances M. Leslie and a second postdoc with Kenneth J. Kellar. Dr. Dávila-García joined the faculty of the Pharmacology Department at Howard University (HU) College of Medicine in 1999 and is presently an Associate Professor of Pharmacology.

Carmen W. Dessauer, PhD

Carmen W. Dessauer earned her BS and PhD in biochemistry from Louisiana State University. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Nobel laureate, Alfred G. Gilman, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. In 1998, she joined the faculty in the Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Dr. Dessauer is currently the John P. and Kathrine G. McGovern Distinguished Chair at the McGovern Medical School, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. After serving 5 years as vice-chair, she is now Professor and Chair, ad interim of the Department of Integrative Biology.

Charles P. France, PhD

Charles P. France is the Robert A Welch Distinguished University Chair in Chemistry and Professor in the Departments of Pharmacology and Psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA). He did undergraduate studies at Northland College and the University of Minnesota and received his MA and PhD from the University of Michigan. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, he held faculty appointments at the University of Michigan, LSU Health Science Center in New Orleans, and UTHSCSA where he founded and is the current Director of the Addiction Research, Treatment and Training Center of Excellence.

J. Silvio Gutkind, PhD

J. Silvio Gutkind received his PhD in Pharmacy and Biochemistry from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and joined the National Institute of Dental Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) after his post-doctoral training at the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Cancer Institute. He served as the Chief of the Oral and Pharyngeal Cancer Branch, NIDCR, NIH, for more than 20 years, until his recruitment to the University of California San Diego (USCD), where he is now Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, and Associate Director for Basic Science at the Moores Cancer Center.

Tracy M. Handel, PhD

Tracy Handel obtained a BS in Chemistry at Bucknell, and PhD, also in chemistry, at Caltech where she received the McKoy Award for excellence in graduate research. She then conducted postdoctoral work at DuPont Merck Pharmaceuticals and stayed on as principal investigator in structural biology, while concurrently chairing an inflammatory diseases team focused on chemokine receptor drug discovery. After two years, Dr Handel transitioned into academia and joined the Molecular and Cell Biology Department at the University of California Berkeley where she received tenure. She was recruited in 2005 to the University of California, San Diego by Palmer Taylor, then Dean of the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SSPPS), where she is currently Distinguished Professor, while also strongly involved in the Department of Pharmacology. She served as Division Chair of Pharmaceutical Sciences in SSPPS for two three-year terms.

Pamela J. Hornby, PhD

Pamela J. Hornby’s research has focused on the mechanisms that can lead to potential therapeutics for patients who suffer from diseases originating in the gut. Her research has added to the scientific knowledge of brain-gut communication in functional bowel disorders, gut-endocrine signaling in obesity and Type 2 Diabetes, and how the gut microbiome-host metabolism can influence health and disease. Her career has included positions in academia at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (LSU-HSC), and in drug discovery at Janssen Pharmaceutical Research & Development Johnson & Johnson. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Drexel University College of Medicine.

Allyn C. Howlett, PhD

Allyn C. Howlett earned a PhD in Pharmacology from Rutgers Medical School, followed by postdoctoral training in pharmacology at the University of Virginia with A.G. Gilman. Her first faculty appointment was in the Saint Louis University Department of Pharmacology, where she played a major role in the development of a new medical pharmacology curriculum and graduate program. From 2000-2006, she was the founding Director of the Neuroscience of Drug Abuse research program at the newly established Julius Chambers Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). This was funded by a cooperative agreement grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to build a research program at this historically black university. Between 2004-2006, she also served as the Assistant Director of the masters’ program in Biology and established the NCCU-Wake Forest University Bridge to the PhD funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. She subsequently took a full-time faculty appointment in the Wake Forest University School of Medicine’s Department of Physiology and Pharmacology in 2006, and later served as Director of the Integrative Physiology and Pharmacology PhD training program from 2010-2015.

Susan L. Ingram, PhD

Susan L. Ingram received an AB from Bowdoin College and a PhD in Pharmacology from Oregon Health & Science University in the laboratory of Dr. John Williams. She was a Human Frontiers Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Macdonald Christie at the University of Sydney followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Susan Amara at the Vollum Institute in Portland, OR. Dr. Ingram’s first faculty position was in the Department of Psychology at Washington State University Vancouver and she is currently Professor and Vice-Chair of Research at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

V. Craig Jordan, PhD

V. Craig Jordan received his BS, PhD, and DSc degrees in the Pharmacology Department, Leeds University Medical School, England. Following two years, as a Visiting Scientist, at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, MA, he returned to Leeds University in 1976 as a tenured lecturer in Pharmacology. He is now the Dallas/Ft. Forth Living Legend Professor of Cancer Research and Professor of Breast Medical Oncology at the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Craig W. Lindsley, PhD

Craig W. Lindsley, Ph.D. is the William K. Warren Jr. Chair in Medicine and University Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, Chemistry and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University. He is also the Director of the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (WCNDD), a clinical stage biotech, nestled within the University. Dr. Lindsley received his BS in chemistry from California State University, Chico before completing his graduate studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and postdoctoral studies at Harvard University. After successful stints at Eli Lilly and Merck running a large medicinal chemistry group (2000-2006), Craig moved to Vanderbilt University to work with Jeff Conn in establishing an academic drug discovery center, as well as a co-founder of Appello Pharmaceuticals.

Jayne S. Reuben, PhD

Jayne S. Reuben is an Instructional Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Director of Instructional Effectiveness at the Texas A&M University (TAMU) School of Dentistry. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the TAMU School of Medicine. Dr. Reuben earned her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences with a specialization in Pharmacology and Toxicology from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan in the department of Pathology under the direction of Dr. Peter A. Ward. She was recruited back to TAMU to lead instruction in pharmacology for the dental curriculum after serving as a founding faculty member at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville.

Des R. Richardson, PhD, DSc

Des Richardson is the Alan Mackay-Sim Distinguished Chair of Cancer Cell Biology at Griffith University, Australia, and has held multiple international professorial appointments in Europe, Japan, China, and Canada. He received his PhD from the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia. He has been awarded successive competitive National Career Fellowships for more than 20 years, including the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Senior Principal Research Fellowship, and is the Director of the Centre for Cancer Cell Biology and Drug Discovery.

Alan Saltiel, PhD

Alan R. Saltiel is Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, and Director of the Institute for Diabetes and Metabolic Health at the University of California, San Diego. He received his AB in Zoology from Duke University in 1975, and his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of North Carolina in 1980. From 1981-1984 he did postdoctoral training with Pedro Cuatrecasas at the Wellcome Research Laboratories in Research Triangle Park, NC, studying mechanisms of insulin action. In 1984 he moved to the Rockefeller University as Assistant Professor, continuing work on the molecular and cellular biology of insulin action. In 1990 he joined Parke Davis Pharmaceutical Research as a Distinguished Research

Fellow and Senior Director/Vice President of Cell Biology, and directed drug discovery activities in diabetes, obesity and cancer.

Daniela Salvemini, PhD

Daniela Salvemini is the William Beaumont Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Saint Louis University (SLU) Medical School and Director of SLU’s Henry and Amelia Nasrallah Center for Neuroscience. Dr. Salvemini received her BSc in pharmacology from Kings College in London and her PhD in pharmacology from the University of London under the mentorship of the late Nobel Laureate Professor Sir John Vane, where she investigated the role of nitric oxide as an intercellular messenger between platelets, neutrophils and the vascular endothelium. She pursued her postdoctoral studies at the William Harvey Research Institute in London with Professor Vane, then moved to the Department of Discovery Pharmacology at Monsanto in Saint Louis, Missouri, to pursue studies on nitric oxide and prostaglandins in inflammation.

Emily E. Scott, PhD

Emily Scott is the F. F. Blicke Collegiate Professor of Pharmacy at the University of Michigan. Her studies of heme proteins originated during undergraduate Marine Biology fieldwork at Texas A&M at Galveston and grew with myoglobin research during her PhD in Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Rice University with Drs. John Olson and Quentin Gibson. She studied cytochrome P450 enzymes as a postdoctoral NRSA fellow at University of Texas Medical Branch with Professor James Halpert, during which she notably generated one of the first membrane P450 structures. In 2004 Dr. Scott became Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at University of Kansas, rising through the ranks before moving to the University of Michigan Department of Medicinal Chemistry.

Karam F.A. Soliman, PhD

Karam F.A. Soliman is the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies and a Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Institute of Public Health of Florida A&M University (FAMU). Dr. Soliman received his MS and PhD in physiology from the University of Georgia in 1971 and 1972 respectively. He started his academic career in 1972 as an assistant professor of physiology/pharmacology at the School of Veterinary Medicine of Tuskegee Institute. He moved to FAMU in 1975, where he was involved in teaching, research and graduate education in neuropharmacology and cancer pharmacology.

Roger K. Sunahara, PhD

Roger K. Sunahara received his PhD and graduate training with Dr. Philip Seeman in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Toronto. He later joined the laboratory of eminent biochemical pharmacologist, Dr. Alfred G. Gilman, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School as a post-doctoral fellow. His training has provided a strong foundation and appreciation for the applications of pharmacology, biochemistry and structural biology to delineate mechanisms of action. Dr. Sunahara started his independent research career in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan Medical School, where he climbed the academic ladder. In 2015 he moved his laboratory to the Department of Pharmacology at the University of California in San Diego. His main area of research focuses on the structural and pharmacological bases for hormone-mediated activation of G proteins by G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs).

R. Clinton Webb, PhD

R. Clinton Webb graduated from Southern Illinois University in 1971 and received his PhD in Anatomy from the University of Iowa in 1976. After postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan and the Universitaire Instelling Antwerpen, he joined the faculty of the Department of Physiology at the University of Michigan in 1979, reaching full Professor in 1989. In 1999, he joined the faculty at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University where he was the Herbert S. Kupperman Chair in Cardiovascular Disease and Regents’ Professor in the Department of Physiology. He served as Chair of the Department of Physiology for 19 years. In 2020, Dr. Webb was appointed Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy and Director of the Cardiovascular Translational Research Center at the University of South Carolina. He is an affiliate faculty member in the Biomedical Engineering Program in the College of Engineering and Computing.

Jürgen Wess, PhD

Jürgen Wess is the Chief of the Molecular Signaling Section, Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He received his PhD in Pharmacology from the Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main in Germany, and subsequently worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Dr. Wess is a pharmacologist with a primary interest in the general area of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs).

Thomas C. Westfall, PhD

Thomas C. Westfall is currently the William Beaumont Professor and Chair Emeritus, Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Dr. Westfall received his undergraduate and PhD degrees from West Virginia University (WVU) in 1959 and 1962 respectively. He did his postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Professor U. S. von Euler, Department of Physiology, Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Westfall has had many faculty appointments, including in the Department of Pharmacology, WVU School of Medicine for two years; at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology for 14 years; and in the Department of Pharmacology and subsequently Pharmacology and Physiology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine for 37 years, where he was both a professor and Chair. He was a visiting scholar in the laboratory of Dr. Jacques Glowinski Group of Biochemical Neuropharmacology at the College of France in Paris.