Welcome New Faculty and Staff!
Please welcome the newest additions to our PharmCat Family Faculty and Staff!
JJ Arevalo is the new Graduate Programs Coordinator, he primarily works with the Pharmacology and Toxicology Program faculty and graduate students. JJ previous served as the Assistant Director of Eller MBA Academic Operations with primary oversight of the #7 ranked Online MBA program. He has also served as Graduate College Admissions and Student Services Specialist, and Faculty Assistant at the James E. Rogers College of Law. Prior to working at The University of Arizona, Arévalo was on staff at the University of Michigan Law School Admissions Office. His last assignment as graduate admissions coordinator completed a nearly decade long career in admissions with Michigan Law. As an active member of the UofM and Metro Detroit communities, he often volunteered his time with the Latino Faculty and Staff Association, various undergraduate Latino student organizations, Latino Law Student Association (LLSA) and LLM students working to enrich their university experience.
Abhijit Date is an Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Pharmaceutics and Pharmacokinetics track and the Director of the Drug Preformulation, Repurposing and Delivery (D-PReD) research laboratory at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, R. K. Coit College of Pharmacy, University of Arizona. He is a drug delivery scientist by training with vast experience in the development and pre-clinical evaluation of conventional and novel drug delivery systems including nanomedicines. He is listed as an inventor on 4 US patents or patent applications. He has more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and 4 book chapters to his credit. He received the Student Choice Award for Teaching in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy, University of Hawaii Hilo in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 and he was a recipient of the Johns Hopkins Center for Nanomedicine research excellence award in 2016. He serves as the Topic Editor for International Journal of Molecular Sciences and editorial board member of Current Nutraceuticals.
YOGESH SUTAR is a new Postdoctoral Research Associate. His research has been focused on development of drug delivery systems using biopolymers, target-based drug delivery and chemical modification of active pharmaceutical ingredient. His M.Tech research involved formulation and in vitro evaluation of chitosan reinforced alginate microcapsule by using ionotropic/external gelation technique. Along with that he also developed nanosuspension containing glyburide, prepared by high pressure homogenization (Top-down Technique) to achieve a better solubility and dissolution profile. His doctoral research at Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India in the Research group of Prof. Vikas N Telvekar was focused on the synthesis of protein mediated targeted drug delivery.
Rui Xiong is a new Assistant Professor in Pharmacology and Toxicology. The Xiong lab is focused on the structure-based design of bioactive molecules to modulate disease-causing proteins or genes. We use modern molecular biology tools to develop biochemical, biophysical, and cellular assays to screen and optimize molecules for various therapeutic targets. Our projects also heavily utilize X-ray crystallography and computational modeling to guide molecule design. Two novel molecules developed from this pipeline successfully entered human clinical trials for treating advanced breast cancer.