Award honorees have made significant contributions to pharmaceutical sciences that promote public
health

ARLINGTON, VA (SEPTEMBER 21, 2018) The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) is proud to announce the winners of four of its global leadership awards: Pharmaceutical Global Health, Emerging Leader, AAPS Foundation Graduate Fellowships, and Student Chapter of the Year.

Recognizing leaders working in pharmaceutical science, technology, engineering, or education whose contributions to the pharmaceutical sciences community have resulted in an outstanding positive impact on education and/or public health, the Pharmaceutical Global Health Award. This year’s recipient is Stephen R. Byrn, Ph.D., FAAPS from Purdue University.

Dr. Byrn is one of the cofounders of the Kilimanjaro Sustainable Medicines in Africa Program. This program is dedicated to enabling the quality manufacturing of critical medicines in Africa by Africans. This program consists of: (1) educational programs in Biotechnology, Pharmaceutical Science, and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP); (2) a pilot-scale manufacturing facility at St. Luke Foundation/Kilimanjaro School of Pharmacy; and (3) a basic Quality Medicines Laboratory with two High Pressure Liquid Chromatographs for the analysis of substandard drugs and for quality control analysis. This program has helped establish a Global Community consisting of over 80 graduates of a certificate program and 40 master’s graduates. The next phase of the program involves continuing building capacity with additional educational programs as well as establishing collaborations with several universities in Africa and selecting the highest priority drugs for manufacture. Steve is especially thankful to represent the team of scientists and contributors who built this program. Finally, without the generous contributions of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the Merck Foundation, Purdue University, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, none of this would have been possible.

This year’s AAPS Emerging Leader beneficiary is James J. Moon, Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, College of Pharmacy. This award recognizes scientists and pharmaceutical professionals who are early in their careers who have made a significant impact through the pharmaceutical sciences that promotes public health.

James J. Moon, Ph.D.is John Gideon Searle Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His interdisciplinary research program aims to develop novel biomaterials-based strategies to advance fundamental understanding of the immune system, with the ultimate goal of improving patients’ lives with effective vaccines and cancer immunotherapies. His innovative research has led to a new class of vaccine nanoparticle system that can elicit unprecedented levels of T- and B-cell immune responses. Moon has published over 50 research articles, including those published in Nature Materials, Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Science Translational Medicine. He has nine pending/approved U.S. and international patent applications, and his novel nano-vaccine delivery technologies have led to two new start-up companies, Vedantra Pharmaceuticals and EVOQ Therapeutics. Dr. Moon received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and his doctorate from Rice University, and he completed his postdoctoral training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The AAPS Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship is awarded to four AAPS student members, each receiving $10,000. The award recognizes recipients’ excellence in their academic performance and validates that their research is deemed outstanding by an expert panel of outside pharmaceutical scientists. Fellowships are used to help advance the recipient’s research.

This year’s recipients are:  Ashlee Brunaugh, Pharm.D., University of Texas at Austin  Brianna Cote, Oregon State University College of Pharmacy  Christopher Jay, Virginia Commonwealth University  Rose Soskind, Rutgers University The AAPS Student Chapter Awards recognize student chapters that have provided exceptional service and outreach. We would like to send a hearty congratulations to this year’s winners:  University of Kentucky AAPS Student Chapter  University of Michigan AAPS Student Chapter  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill AAPS Student Chapter # # # About AAPS: The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) is a professional, scientific organization of approximately 9,000 members employed in academia, industry, government, and other research institutes worldwide. Founded in 1986, AAPS advances the capacity of pharmaceutical scientists to develop products and therapies that improve global health. Visit www.aaps.org today and follow us on Twitter and Facebook, hashtag #AAPS2018 and #PharmSci360.