University of Florida pharmacy dean to speak at UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Julie A. Johnson, dean of the University of Florida (UF) College of Pharmacy, will deliver the Gerhard Levy Distinguished Lecture at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 1, on the University at Buffalo South Campus.

Johnson, who also is a distinguished professor at UF, will speak on “Hypertension Pharmacogenomics: Using ’omics Approaches to Define Variable Drug Response.”

The majority of Johnson’s research centers around the pharmacogenomics of antihypertensive drugs, and drugs used to prevent clot formation. Her research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Heart Association since 1990.

Her research programs focus on inter-patient variability in drug response, particularly cardiovascular drug pharmacogenomics, and the influence of race/ethnicity on drug response and pharmacogenomics.

A member of the University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy faculty for nine years, Johnson joined the University of Florida faculty in 1998.

Johnson earned a BS in pharmacy from Ohio State University and a PharmD from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

The UB 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.

An endowment fund created with gifts from private donors to the school supports the lecture series and graduate student scholarships awarded in Levy’s name.

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 received 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.