Monash’s Professor Arthur Christopoulos reappointed as Dean, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Professor Arthur Christopoulos, FAA FAHMS.

26 July 2024

Monash University’s world-leading Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is delighted to announce the reappointment of Professor Arthur Christopoulos, FAA FAHMS, who will continue as Dean of the Faculty for a further five-year term.

Professor Christopoulos assumed the role of Dean in August 2019 and has been a driving force behind the Faculty’s continued growth and global success over the past five years, including Monash reaching number one in the world for Pharmacy and Pharmacology in the 2022 QS World Rankings by Subject.

Although admitting that commencing his role as Dean just before the world was thrown into turmoil by the COVID pandemic was challenging, Professor Christopoulos says that the pandemic also highlighted the incredible value of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists to our community.

“I’m immensely proud and grateful for the resilience demonstrated by our staff over the past five years, particularly during the early years of the pandemic. Not only did they keep moving forward during unprecedented times, they flourished. This dedication is reflected in the Faculty’s ongoing string of successes across both research and education, and could not have been achieved without our wonderful Parkville community and the support of the entire Monash ecosystem,” Professor Christopoulos said.

Now, moving into the next five years, Professor Christopoulos has set his sights on the future, including how the Faculty will utilise artificial intelligence to enhance education and research, along with helping to tackle climate change by minimising the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals across the drug discovery, development and medicine use pipeline.

“The Faculty continues to build on an incredible and enduring foundation, and I’m very excited to be working with such a diverse and outstanding cohort of academic and professional staff, and our wonderful students, as we move into a new era of scientific research and addressing global healthcare demands,” Professor Christopoulos said.

The past five years have resulted in many noteworthy achievements for the Faculty, including unprecedented student growth in response to the launch of groundbreaking new education programs; multiple new high-impact research projects; significant new equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives; and a strong focus on enterprise, translation and commercialisation.

The Faculty’s research accomplishments through the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) have attracted local and international attention, from helping to pave the way for Australia’s mRNA therapeutic capabilities, through to the establishment of several new programs and initiatives to address a myriad of global health challenges.

“Under the leadership of Professor Chris Porter, MIPS has thrived, and I have been delighted to share this journey with him. Recent years have seen the development of Australia’s first mRNA vaccine for COVID, which has subsequently led to the growth of Victoria’s mRNA ecosystem, including the Victorian mRNA Innovation Hub and the establishment of the Monash-Moderna mRNA Quantitative Pharmacology Accelerator, both led by our Faculty,” Professor Christopoulos said.

“Additionally, we saw the launch of the nationally significant ‘MedChem Australia’ initiative, led by Professor Brendon Monahan; a new ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre, led by Professor Patrick Sexton; welcomed Professor Paul Stupple as the new head of our Australian Translational Medicinal Chemistry Facility and Professor Martin Scanlon as the new head of our Medicinal Chemistry Theme; launched the Neuromedicines Discovery Centre, led by Professor Chris Langmead; appointed Ms. Rosemary Manning as the inaugural Chief Operating Officer of MIPS and, under the leadership of Professor Michelle McIntosh, expanded our Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre to a second node in Clayton’s Monash Technology Precinct.”

“This year also saw the appointment of the Faculty’s inaugural Director of Enterprise & Engagement, Dr. Russell Tait. The newly formed role reflects our significant growth and aspirations in research translation, commercialisation and enterprise, which are set to expand even further with Monash’s acquisition of a prime Parkville property at 343 Royal Parade with the intent to create a state-of-the-art Drug Discovery Translation Hub.”

On education, Professor Christopoulos said “Our world-class team of educators have cemented our Pharmacy degree’s reputation as the leading program of its kind in Australia. Together with the extraordinary growth in our more recent Pharmaceutical Science offerings, especially our new Masters of Pharmaceutical Science, our courses strive to address the growing healthcare workforce needs both nationally and internationally.”

“Indeed, these last few years have consecutively seen our largest commencing student cohorts in our 143 year history, which in turn has led to significant new staff recruitment. Our ‘PPSEd’ (Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Education) Theme, under the leadership of Deputy Dean and Associate Dean (Education), Professor Paul White, has grown exponentially; the appointment of Kirsten Galbraith as Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Education has supercharged our experiential programs.  A major contributor to our success in student retention and growth is the way in which our staff have committed themselves to student wellbeing and engagement during the most turbulent of times, especially during unprecedented border closures and the switch to online learning.”

Professor Christopoulos said that underpinning all these incredible achievements is the Faculty’s supportive and inclusive culture.

“I’m incredibly proud, grateful and humbled to work alongside a leadership team who are fully committed to fostering an environment where everyone is given the opportunity to be heard and to prosper. This includes the establishment of Her Research Matters (HRM) in 2019 to promote, sponsor and foster women’s academic research careers, and the more recent launch of Multicultural Outreach and Support for Advancement, Inclusion and Community (MOSAIC) to increase representation of traditionally marginalised communities in decision-making groups and leadership positions.”

Throughout it all, Professor Christopoulos has maintained his own research productivity and has been named as a Highly Cited Researcher (top 0.1% globally)  in Pharmacology and Toxicology by Clarivate Analytics for 10 consecutive years. In 2022, he was also named a Highly Cited Researcher in Biology and Biochemistry.

With a reputation as an eminent scholar and researcher in pharmacology, Professor Christopoulos has been recognised internationally for his work on novel approaches to drug discovery. He has received numerous major awards from leading scientific Societies in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, and has been elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (2017) and the British Pharmacological Society (2018). In 2021, he became the first pharmacist to be elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and was later elected a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia in 2023.

Professor Christopoulos believes success comes down to people and culture, and cannot be attributed to one person alone.

“I would like to acknowledge the heart and soul of our Faculty, namely its staff and students, for making it what it is today. On a personal note, I remain forever grateful for the unwavering support and encouragement of a truly outstanding leadership team within this amazing Faculty and University. I am fortunate to be working with the ‘best of the best’, including the incredible Marian Costelloe as Faculty General Manager, on a global stage and I am very excited about the journey that we will all be taking together over the next five years.”

Ends