Integrative and Organ Systems Pharmacology (IOSP)

Myron Toews, PhD, Course Director, is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at UNMC.  His research interests are in cellular signaling, particularly the regulation of adrenergic receptors and the biological roles of lysophophatidic acid.

Peter Abel, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and in the Department of Pharmacy Sciences at Creighton University.  He is Associate Editor of JPET and Medical Hypothesis and Research.  He has published extensively on drug receptors and physiological factors that affect cardiac, vascular and visceral smooth muscle function using isolated tissues.  His research includes drug development and he hold patents for novel peptide drugs.  He directs the Creighton University cardiovascular components of the course.

Ana Basso, PhD is a Research Investigator at Abbott Laboratories, Neuroscience Research Division since 2001. She received her PhD in Neuropharmacology from the National University of Córdoba (Argentina) and did her postdoctoral trainings at The Scripps Research Institute with Dr. George Koob as a Fogarty Fellow (NIH) investigating the role of brain stress systems in drug dependence, and then at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Dr. Ann E. Kelley studying neural mechanisms in the nucleus accumbens implicated in ingestive behavior. Before joining Abbott, Ana was an Assistant Professor in Pharmacology at the University of Córdoba, Argentina.

Charles Bockman, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Creighton University.  He received the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Medical Class of 2004.  His research includes studies of isolated vascular smooth muscle function.  Dr. Bockman has studied the role of a variety of receptors (e.g., vasopressin, alpha-2, peptide and histamine receptors) in regulating on contractility.

Stephen Bonasera, PhD is an Assistant Professor, Int Med Geriatrics, COM, Courtesy Asst Professor, Pharmacology/Exp Neuroscience, COM, PhD Emory Univ 1995, MD Emory Univ 1995.

Kurtis Cornish, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology at UNMC.  He has received numerous awards from students and peers for his outstanding teaching.  Dr. Cornish has numerous research publications resulting from studies with in vivo animal models, including primates and instrumented conscious dogs.  He is the PI of the Animal Core for PO1 HL622201 (I.H. Zucker, PI).

Bryan Cox, PhD is Director, Integrative Pharmacology at Abbott Laboratories and has a strong background in cardiovascular pharmacology.  He has been very active in the affairs of American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, serving on the Program Committee and as the Chair of the Division of Drug Discovery Development, and Regulatory Affairs.  He coordinates the Abbott components of the course.

Robert Dixon, DVM is Director of Comparative Medicine at UNMC.  He is Board Certified by the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine.  He is a member of the Council on Accreditation and Chair of the Ad Hoc Site Visitor Selection Committee of AAALAC, International.  Dr. Dixon oversees 4 separate facilities at UNMC housing swine, dogs, cats, rabbits, and rodents (including transgenic animals).

Rebecca Edelmayer, PhD is a Senior Research Scientist at Abbott Laboratories. She is a Neuropharmacologist that received her PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Arizona studying the neurobiology of pain and the neural mechanisms of migraine headache in the laboratory of Dr. Frank Porreca. She continued her post-doctoral training in migraine pathophysiology in the laboratory of Dr. Greg Dussor investigating potential targets for headache therapeutics.

S. J. Enna, PhD is Professor and Past Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Kansas School of Medicine.  He also holds a Professorship in the Department of Psychiatry and is a recent Past President of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.  His research interests are in regulatory events in the central nervous system (CNS) and the involvement of various receptors in CNS function. 
Dr. Enna leads the neurobehavioral components of the course.

Howard Fox, MD, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience and Senior Associate Dean for Research and Development in UNMC's College of Medicine. He joined UNMC in 2008 after 18 years at the Scripps Institute. His research focuses on the processes that lead to neurodegeneration and brain dysfunction following HIV infection and during drug abuse. A major focus is on rhesus monkeys infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) as a model of neuroAIDS and on integrative approaches that utilize modern "omics"techniques to identify biomarkers and to understand the molecular basis of central nervous system (CNS) disease.

Howard Gendelman, MD, PhD is the Larson Professor of Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience at UNMC. He is known for his work on how astrocytes and microglial cells induce neural cell damage and neurodegenerative diseases, including HIV dementia, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's diseases. A major current focus is on developing immunotherapy and nanomedicine strategies for these diseases by using animal models. He serves on numerous editorial boards, scientific review panels, and federal and state committees.

James Haorah, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience at UNMC. His research interests are investigating the underlying mechanisms of neuronal inflammation and degeneration as a result of blood-brain barrier dysfunction by substance of abuse mediated oxidative stress.

Noel Johnson, DVM is an Assistant Director of Comparative Medicine at UNMC. He was in private veterinary practice for 9 years prior to joining UNMC in 1999.

Beth Levant, PhD is Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics and Associate Scientist in the Smith Mental Retardation Research Center at the University of Kansas Medical Center.  She is also a Research Pharmacologist at the Kansas City Veterans Administration Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri.  Dr. Levant has published extensively on dopamine receptors in the central nervous system and their relationship to behavior.  She has served as a manuscript reviewer for many neuroscience and pharmacology journals.

Kennan Marsh, PhD received her BA degree in Chemistry from Hollins University and her MS/PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Kansas.  She has been involved in pharmacokinetics research related to drug development at Abbott for >25 years. In addition to preclinical animal studies and early clinical trials for new drugs, Dr. Marsh is particularly interested in defining the impact of formulations on systemic delivery.

Kenneth McCarson, PhD is Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics and Associate Scientist in the Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at the University of Kansas Medical Center.  He also serves as Director of the Rodent Behavior Facility, Biobehavioral Measurement Core.  He has published extensively on neurokinins and nociception.  Dr. McCarson has served as an ad hoc grant reviewer for the Wellcome Trust and as Reviewer for NIH NIDA-K Training and Career Development Review Committee.

Donald Miller, PhD is an Associate Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and a former faculty member in the UNMC College of Pharmacy. His research focuses on the study of factors influencing blood-brain barrier, in particular in terms of developing methods for enhancing drug delivery to the brain. His work ranges from cellular and molecular studies to state-of-the-art techniques for imaging blood-brain barrier changes in live animals.

Eric Mohler, PhD is a Senior Research Pharmacologist at Abbott Laboratories, Global Pharmaceutical R&D in Chicago. He is a behavioral pharmacologist with research interests in the memory enhancing properties of 5-HT4 agonists and the role of the prefrontal cortex in attention.

Peter Oldenburg, PhD is a postdoctoral researcher in the pulmonary section of the department of internal medicine at UNMC. His background is in pharmacology and research interests are in the general effects that alcohol has on the lungs, particularly on the regulation of bronchial reactivity and pulmonary inflammation.

Thomas Porter, MD is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Non-Invasive Cardiology Laboratory at UNMC.  He is also a Member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Echocardiography.  He has published extensively on echocardiography and diagnostic ultrasound.  These studies have been done both in animals and humans.  His participation in the Short Course will be with echocardiography in experimental animals.

Ernest Prentice, PhD is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and is the Institutional Official for both human and animal research.  Dr. Prentice is a nationally known contributor to the literature on the ethics and regulation of both human and animal research.  He is a frequent speaker at meetings on various aspects of research ethics and a consultant for universities, hospitals, and law firms.

Carol Toris, PhD is Professor and Director of Glaucoma Research in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at UNMC.  She has been involved in studying the pharmacology of numerous anti-glaucoma drugs using various animal models, most notably rabbits, cats and monkeys.  She also has been involved in studies on human subjects.

Michael Williams, PhD, DSc has recently retired after 34 years of involvement in drug discovery research in the pharmaceutical industry. He is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL and in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology. Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA. He is Editor-In Chief of Drug Development Research and Current Protocols in Pharmacology, an Associate Editor of JPET and Commentaries Editor for Biochemical Pharmacology. He has published extensively in drug discovery, both in the discovery of new compounds and in the processes involved. He currently consults in the area of CNS drug discovery.

Dennis Wolff, PhD is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Pharmacology at Creighton University and a Research Scientist at the Omaha VA Medical Center.  He has published in the areas of cardiovascular, renal and sympathetic nervous system pharmacology.  His specific research interests are in atherosclerosis, congestive heart failure and the role of complement fixation in cardiac xenotransplant rejection, with the goal of understanding the molecular basis of disease to define targets for new drug development.

Irving Zucker, PhD is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology (formerly the Department of Physiology and Biophysics).  He also is the Theodore Hubbard, M.D. Endowed Chair of Cardiovascular Research.  Dr. Zucker has published widely on research related to cardiovascular function and much of this work has been done with instrumented, conscious animal models.  Dr. Zucker is PI on a program project grant on chronic heart failure. He coordinates the UNMC cardiovascular components of the course.