Faculty invests in the future of research excellence
February 2010
The research excellence of outstanding staff at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is recognised annually via the faculty's research awards. As a significant player in the Australian healthcare and biomedical industry, the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is home to some of Australia's leading researchers. The faculty's Research award recognise significant career success. The 2009 recipient Professor Roger L Nation is internationally recognised for his significant research. Co-director of the Centre for Medicine Use and Safety and member of Drug Delivery, Disposition and Dynamics, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Professor Nation has made a significant contribution to research in the safe use of medicines and has made an outstanding internationally recognised contribution to the discovery, development and optimization of antimicrobial chemotherapy for management of infections caused by multidrug-resistant pathogens.
Professor Nation has a total of 194 career publications in international peer-reviewed journals. Over the past 5 years alone he has published 50 papers, been awarded 15 grants (totalling $9M) including 4 NHMRC and 2 NIH grants. He leads a major and successful research group of 23 staff and PhD students.
The faculty research awards are an important way of investing in the success of promising researchers to ensure the ongoing success of research within the faculty. Professor William N Charman, Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences recently awarded an Early Career Research Award and two Young Investigator Awards.
Professor Nation joins past winners Professor Susan A Charman and Professor Christopher JH Porter in being named as one of the faculty's long term contributors of research attracting international peer recognition.
Dr Bim Graham was recognised for his excellence as an early career pharmaceutical research scientist. Dr Graham's research speciality is novel metal complexes and bioconjugates.
Since completing his PhD in 1999 Dr Graham has produced 40 career publications (including JACS, Science, and Inorganic Chemistry) and an impressive 870 citations. He has a strong funding record and was recently granted an ARC Discovery grant. Dr Graham's research group has three HDR and three Honours students. These achievements easily meet the requirements of the faculty's annual Early Career Research Award which considers major research papers in high impact journals, programmatic research and grant support achieved.
As recipient of this award Dr Graham is the faculty's nominee for the Vice Chancellors Early Career Research Award.
The Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Young Investigator Award is a biennial award, and this year was jointly presented to Dr Joseph A Nicolazzo and Dr Johnson George. The award recognises excellent progress of young investigators with less than five years research experience since the completion of their PhD or equivalent.
Dr Nicolazzo was recognised for his work establishing within the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences a new research program investigating drug delivery to the central nervous system. To date, he has 16 publications, five PhD students and has attracted more than $200,000 in grant funding. Dr Nicolazzo has a research interest in various aspects of the central nervous system and drug transport across the blood-brain barrier.
Since January 2007 Dr George has been a member of the major research programs in the Centre for Medicine Use and Safety. To date, he has 27 publications, two PhD students and is an investigator on major grant funding projects worth more than $1.2M. Dr George has focused his research on medication adherence, quality use of medicines in the elderly and non-medical prescribing. He also has a research interest in smoking cessation and complementary and alternative medicines.