UB pharmacy professor earns international award and 3 fellowships

Donald Mager, professor in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, has been named a fellow of three prominent academic societies: the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and the International Society of Pharmacometrics (ISoP).

Mager, who also serves as vice chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, received the 2017 ISoP Innovation Award as well. Both the award and fellowship acknowledge individuals whose scientific and innovative contributions have advanced the field of pharmacometrics. He received the honors last month at the eighth annual American Conference on Pharmacometrics.

The 2017 AAAS fellows will be announced formally on Nov. 24 in the journal Science. Mager is among 396 scientists to receive the distinction for their notable efforts in advancing science and its applications. New fellows will also be honored at the 2018 AAAS Annual Meeting on Feb. 17 in Austin, Texas.

As part of the AAAS Section on Pharmaceutical Sciences, Mager was commended for his contributions to the field of computational and systems pharmacology, particularly for using mechanistic and population-based pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modeling approaches for diverse compounds.

Mager was honored by the AAPS at its 2017 annual meeting for his excellence in advancing the capacity of pharmaceutical scientists to develop products and therapies that improve global health.

His research focuses on identifying the molecular and physiological factors that control the pharmacological properties of various drugs, including antiplatelet, anticancer and immunomodulatory drugs. His work has led to new theoretical concepts and applications for targeted drugs, antibody-based therapeutics and cancer chemotherapy models.

Mager also has mentored numerous students, postdoctoral fellows and visiting scientists, and has published more than 100 journal articles and books.