Straubinger Named to NIH Study Section

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The National Institutes of Health Center for Scientific Review has appointed Robert M. Straubinger, professor in the University at Buffalo School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, to serve as a member of its Drug Discovery and Molecular Pharmacology (DMP) Study Section.

Straubinger, who also directs that department's instrumentation facility, will serve through June 30, 2011.

The DMP Study Section encompasses discovery, design, identification, isolation, development and synthesis of novel agents that are potentially useful in cancer therapy; identification of molecular targets of antineoplastic agents; and design, development and validation of novel preclinical models for anticancer drug evaluation.

Straubinger, who recently was elected a fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, said as part of the NIH appointment, he will serve as "a peer reviewer of NIH grants for the next four years.

"The peer reviewers both help in ensuring the highest quality and best science recommended for funding by NIH, and provide applicants with comments on their proposals that hopefully help them improve their proposals and design of the research," he said.

Straubinger, who began teaching at UB in 1989, received bachelor of arts degrees in English and anthropology from the University of Rochester, a master's degree in natural sciences from UB and a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of California at San Francisco, where he served as a postdoctoral fellow in the cancer and cardiovascular research institutes.

His research focuses on the broad area of drug carriers and targeted drug delivery, with an emphasis on the mechanisms by which drug carriers alter the pharmacology of carrier-associated drugs. Currently he is at work on an NIH-funded research project that involves strategies to attack tumor blood vessels by targeting lipid nanoparticles to them.

Toni Scarp, director of the Center for Scientific Review, said that study section members are selected on the basis of their demonstrated competence and achievement in their scientific discipline as evidenced by the quality of research accomplishments, publications in scientific journals, and other scientific activities, achievements and honors.

Straubinger is a resident of Amherst.