Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Strengths in Translational Research, Drug Discovery, and Development

A major strength of the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences has been its ability to recruit outstanding faculty who perform innovative research along the line of Drug Discovery and Development. For example, in the most recent rankings of NIH funding to Pharmacy Schools (FY 2008), the Skaggs School of Pharmacy ranked #1 in % Ph.D. faculty funded (100%) and #2 in $ per Ph.D. faculty.

Several of the faculty including Dean Palmer Taylor, Associate Dean for Scientific Affairs James R. Halpert, and Professor Deborah Spector are playing leading roles in the newly created UCSD Clinical and Translational Research Institute.

In addition, the very strong research focus of the School is evidenced by the fact that in 2009 60% of the graduating Pharm. D. students will be pursuing fellowships and post-graduate programs in clinical pharmacy and translational research, compared with a national average of 12%. Two of our fellowships are in Oncology supported by a gift from Pfizer.

The key therapeutic areas of expertise include oncology, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, CNS disorders, vaccines and infectious diseases, and pain and immune diseases. Other areas of expertise support most aspects of drug discovery and involve computational drug discovery, proteomics using mass spectrometry to discover novel target function, pharmacology, toxicology, drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters, nano-technologies for drug delivery application, and structural biology. Accordingly, the basic science and clinical faculty in the SSPPS encompass many different steps of the drug discovery and development process ranging from target identification, lead optimization, and clinical development to pharmacoeconomics.

In collaboration with the UCSD Moores Cancer Center, the SSPPS is developing a post-doctoral research and education program in several disciplines as outlined below.