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Detailed Information

Programs of Study

The Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences offers the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in pharmaceutics, medicinal chemistry, and pharmacology and the M.S. in pharmacy administration. M.S. programs require a minimum of 30 postbaccalaureate semester hours, including 6 credits in thesis research. Ph.D. programs require a minimum of 60 postbaccalaureate semester hours, including at least 12 credits in dissertation research. The M.S. in pharmacy administration requires 36 credits, including at least 6 credits in thesis research. In conjunction with the Graduate School of Business Administration, the department offers an M.B.A./M.S. in industrial pharmacy, an 85-credit, nonthesis program that requires concurrent graduate-level enrollment in both business administration and the pharmaceutical sciences. Fifty-seven credits in core business administration course work and 28 credits of course work in the pharmaceutical sciences are required.

Research Facilities

The Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences is centered in the Richard King Mellon Hall of Science. Laboratory instrumentation includes scanning and transmission electron microscopes, NIR imager, nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers, infrared spectrometers, near-infrared spectrometers, near-infrared microscope, confocal microscopes, ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometers, atomic absorption spectrophotometers, gas chromatographs, high-pressure liquid chromatographs, rheometers, dissolution and disintegration testing equipment, a benchtop quadruple GC-mass spectrometer with electron impact and positive ion and negative ion chemical ionizations, a liquid chromatograph with a UV diode array detector, a gel permeation chromatograph with laser light scattering, differential pressure viscometry, refractive index detectors, capillary electrophoresis with UV diode array detector, PCR thermocyclers, a cell/tissue culture facility, DNA synthesizer, automatic film developer, gamma counter, and image analyzer.

Mellon Hall facilities include the Duquesne University Center for Pharmaceutical Technology and a fully equipped manufacturing laboratory/pilot plant with slant cone and high shear mixers, a microfluidizer, fluid bed and spray dryers, coaters, a capsule-filling machine, and a fully computer controlled/monitored 38-station Hata tablet press. Modern animal facilities in adjacent Bayer Hall provide the opportunity for physiological, pharmacological, and toxicological evaluations of drugs and chemicals. The Academic Research Center for Pharmacy Care in Bayer Learning Center holds cardiovascular, endocrine, and skeletal systems diagnostic and therapeutic treatment equipment. The Gumberg Library at Duquesne houses a state-of-the-art integrated, online library system complete with a computerized card catalog, advanced computer disk (CD-ROM) system, online networked databases, and an array of technical support functions. The system enables students to access extensive local, national, and international databases and library catalogs around the world. Students have direct access to other university and research libraries in the Pittsburgh area.

Financial Aid

Teaching and research assistantships, which may include full remission of tuition and fees, are available.

Cost of Study

In 2009–10, tuition is $1046 per credit plus a University fee of $81 per credit.

Living and Housing Costs

For 2009–10, room and board in University dormitories cost $9200 per student per academic year for double occupancy. Food and clothing costs are similar to those in other cities of comparable size. The University offers a Student Health Care package, required for all graduate students.

Student Group

The University enrolls more than 10,000 students; typically, 70 students, representing a mix of U.S. (30 percent) and international (70 percent), are enrolled in graduate programs in the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Student Outcomes

Most recent M.S. graduates have continued studies at the doctoral level or are employed in a variety of research laboratory settings. Graduates of Ph.D. programs are employed in research and administrative positions in industry and in research and teaching in academia.

Location

Allegheny County has a population of about 1 million; one third live in the city of Pittsburgh. Downtown is headquarters for several major corporations and the hub of cultural and recreational activities. Pittsburgh fields professional teams in football, baseball, and hockey. Perhaps the most engaging quality is the hometown flavor of the many neighborhoods that make up Pittsburgh.

The University

Duquesne is a private, Catholic, coeducational university. The 48-acre self-enclosed campus overlooks the Monongahela River. Students and 429 full-time faculty members are organized into the College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts and the Schools of Pharmacy, Nursing, Law, Business Administration, Education, Music, Health Sciences, Natural and Environmental Sciences, and Leadership and Professional Advancement. All campus facilities have been refurbished, with recent additions of current computer labs, a multipurpose athletic complex, and student living-learning centers. The University supports many intercollegiate and intramural athletics programs. The Tamburitzans and the Red Masquers are well-established ethnic dance and theatrical groups.

Applying

Students are admitted for the fall or spring semester. Assistantships are normally awarded in spring for the following academic year. Applicants should have earned a baccalaureate degree in chemistry, biology, pharmacy, allied health sciences, or social/behavioral or business sciences, depending on the proposed field of study. Any deficiencies in undergraduate course work must be resolved. Challenge examinations are not accepted for graduate credit. The completed application and supporting documents (official transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate course work, a brief statement of purpose and intent with regard to the specific area of graduate study chosen, three letters of recommendation from persons acquainted with the academic abilities of the applicant, and results of the GRE General Test) must be sent to the Director of Graduate Studies. Applicants whose native language or principal language of instruction is not English are required to submit TOEFL scores to the Graduate School and to sit for on-campus English language competency testing. International students who are applying for a teaching assistantship are required to submit TSE scores.

The Faculty and Their Research

• Medicinal Chemistry
• Patrick Flaherty, Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry; Ph.D., Iowa. Synthetic medicinal chemistry and rational drug design, with emphasis on emerging biochemical targets relevant to human disease states, modern synthetic methodology, and iterative rounds of computation, synthesis, then biochemical analysis; general therapeutic areas of CNS agents and anticancer agents; current biological targets of CDK5, microtubules, DXR, alpha-synuclein.
• Aleem Gangjee, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Mylan School of Pharmacy Distinguished Professor; Ph.D., Iowa. Synthetic medicinal chemistry, computer-assisted drug design, inhibitors of folate-metabolizing enzymes, receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors, antimitotic agents, antitumor agents, design of combination chemotherapeutic potential in signal agents, antiopportunistic infection agents, heterocyclic chemistry, stereochemistry.
• Marc W. Harrold, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry; Ph.D., Ohio State. Development of computer-based educational tools, instructional strategies in medicinal chemistry, drug design.
• David J. Lapinsky, Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry; Ph.D., Ohio State. Synthetic organic medicinal chemistry, rational drug design, computer-assisted drug design, emphasis on irreversible probes for characterizing monoamine transporter structure/function, development of drug candidates for treating psychostimulant abuse.
• Pharmaceutical Administration
• Vincent J. Giannetti, Professor of Pharmaceutical Administration; Ph.D., Pittsburgh. Prescription drug adherence, mental health, substance abuse, pharmacist counseling behaviors, health-care policy and ethics, coping with medication errors.
• Khalid M. Kamal, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Administration; Ph.D., West Virginia. Application of decision and cost-effectiveness analysis in health policy and medicine; health outcomes assessment in chronic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
• Andrea R. Pfalzgraf, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Administration; M.P.H., Emory; Ph.D., West Virginia. Physician prescribing decisions, child and adolescent mental health.
• David J. Tipton, Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Administration; Ph.D., St. Louis. Medication errors, services marketing.
• Pharmaceutics
• Moji Christianah Adeyeye, Professor of Pharmaceutics; Ph.D., Georgia. Preformulation, excipient characterization; immediate- and sustained-release liquid, semisolid, and solid dosage form development, stability, quality assurance, and bioavailability evaluation; parenteral and ophthalmic delivery; unit process optimization; pediatric formulation manufacturing.
• Carl A. Anderson, Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Ph.D., Texas at Austin. Sensor technology for the study and control of pharmaceutical manufacturing, employing technologies such as acoustic and near-infrared spectroscopy processed by chemometric methods.
• Lawrence H. Block, Professor of Pharmaceutics; Ph.D., Maryland. Pharmaceutic aspects of macromolecular/polymeric excipients (e.g., alginates, chitosan, and xanthan gum with an emphasis on the rheological properties of their solutions); pharmaceutical engineering, especially scale-up of processing of nonparenteral liquids and semisolids; hydrophilic gels as drug delivery systems; theoretical aspects of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics; controlled and modified release drug and cosmetic delivery system development.
• Ira Buckner, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Ph.D., Iowa. Investigation of the interactions between pharmaceutical materials and mechanical energy to facilitate advanced product development.
• James K. Drennen III, Associate Professor of Pharmaceutics and Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Research; Ph.D., Kentucky. Pharmaceutical and medical applications of near-infrared spectroscopy, process control, chemometrics, process analytical technology.
• Jelena Janjic, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutics; Ph.D., Pittsburgh. Fluorine chemistry applied to design and synthesis of multimodal nanoparticles for molecular imaging and diagnostics; rational design of nanoparticles as drug delivery vehicles for DNA, RNA, and small molecules in cancer and inflammation disease models.
• Wilson S. Meng, Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Ph.D., USC. Development of strategies to deliver protein and nucleic acids in the modulation of transplant rejection and cancer immunity.
• Peter L. D. Wildfong, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutics; Ph.D., Purdue. Pharmaceutical materials science, with current research projects exploring how specific physicochemical and structural properties of small molecule organic solid materials impact large-scale manufacturing and final-dosage-form performance; emphasis on mechanically activated solid-state phase transformations of APIs and excipients; potential for high-shear induction of polymorphism and amorphization.
• Pharmacology
• J. Douglas Bricker, Professor of Pharmacology and Dean of the Mylan School of Pharmacy; Ph.D., Duquesne. Effects of drugs, chemicals, and disease states on the regulation of calcium uptake mechanisms, development, and screening of antidotal agents for clinical use and in vitro toxicity testing methods.
• Jane E. Cavanaugh, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology; Ph.D., Penn State Hershey Medical Center. Mechanisms of cell death and survival in the diseased (Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease) and nondiseased (normal aging) brain.
• Vicki L. Davis, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology; Ph.D., North Carolina. Effects of pharmaceutical, environmental, plant, and natural estrogen exposure on the development of breast cancer and cataracts in women, with emphasis on using various techniques to determine potential methods of decreasing the risk factors.
• David A. Johnson, Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Director of Graduate Studies; Ph.D., Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. Drugs that enhance the function of neuronal pathways involved with learning and memory, neuropathology and treatment of eating disorders.
• Christopher K. Surratt, Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Division Head of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Ph.D., Virginia. Molecular mechanisms of brain receptors that recognize antidepressants, anxiolytics, and psychostimulant drugs of abuse.
• Paula A. Witt-Enderby, Professor of Pharmacology; Ph.D., Arizona. Molecular pharmacology of melatonin receptors, and its associated signaling cascades, with emphasis on the role of melatonin in stem cell differentiation.

Correspondence and Information

Duquesne University
Director of Graduate Studies
Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
School of Pharmacy
409 Mellon Hall
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15282
Telephone: 412-396-1172
Email: gsps-adm@duq.edu