Noted Researcher to Speak on Drugs and Genes in the First Gerhard Levy Distinguished Lecture

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Kathleen Giacomini, a University at Buffalo alumnus and noted national researcher in the field of biopharmaceutical sciences, will be the first speaker in the recently established Gerhard Levy Distinguished Lecture series.

Sponsored by the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Sigma Xi, the international science honors organization, Giacomini's lecture is titled, "Pharmaceutical Sciences in the New Millennium: Human Genetics Converges with Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics." It will be held at 12:30 p.m. on April 11 in Room 225 of Natural Sciences Building on UB's North (Amherst) Campus. It will be free and open to the public, as well as on http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/webcast/.

Giacomini is professor and chair of biopharmaceutical sciences at the University of California at San Francisco. In 1979, she received her doctorate in pharmaceutics from the University at Buffalo, working under Gerhard Levy, SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pharmaceutics. From 1979-81, Giacomini was a post-doctoral fellow in clinical pharmacology at Stanford University and in 1981 she joined the University of California at San Francisco.

In 1999, she received the Leon Goldberg Investigator Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and was named Pharmaceutical Scientist of the Year by the Federation of International Pharmaceutics.

Giacomini's research focuses on targeting and disposition of drugs and on genetic variation in drug response. She is the principal investigator of a recently awarded grant from the National Institutes of Health entitled: "Pharmacogenetics of Membrane Transporters."

The Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences established the Gerhard Levy Distinguished Lectureship in 2000 to honor Levy, who is considered the father of pharmacodynamics, for his role as a pioneer and principal contributor in the fields of biopharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics, clinical pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.

A graduate of the University of California at San Francisco School of Pharmacy, Levy was a UB faculty member from 1959 until he retired in 2000. Throughout his distinguished career, he served on several editorial boards, wrote many articles and received honorary doctorates from six universities. Levy collected numerous awards, including the first Lifetime Achievement in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Award from the International Pharmaceutical Federation in 1994, the 1995 Medeval Distinguished Lecturer in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Manchester, England, and the Distinguished Investigator Award from the American College of Clinical Pharmacology in 1998.

In conjunction with the Levy lectureship, the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is trying to raise $1.5 million to establish the Gerhard Levy Endowed Chair. A mentor to dozens of pharmacists and researchers who have gone on to win fame in their own rights, school administrators felt an endowed chair would best carry on Levy's tradition of excellence in teaching and his committed leadership.

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