Dept. of Molecular Pharmaceutics / University of Utah

Dept BBQ tonight, featuring grilled foods followed by our annual faculty vs. student tug-o-war. Miraculously the faculty won again this year, and received mini-trophies for their efforts! Representing our faculty were Drs. Grainger, new faculty Overchuk, Al-Hilal, Ghandehari, and Owen. Congrats on their hard earned victory!

Excited to announce that 3 students in our Dept of Molecular Pharmaceutics are recipients of the prestigious Skaggs Graduate Research Fellowships for 2026-2027! These are the largest fellowship awards given out by our College (~$39K). The recipients are Esther Need (Shi and Goel labs), Julius Tuekpe (Lim lab), and Oliver Hubbard (Ghandehari lab). Congrats to all! 👏👏 More award announcements coming!

We are delighted to invite you to the 20th International Symposium on Recent Advances in Drug Delivery Systems, February 23-26, 2027 at the University of Utah Guest House & Conference Center. This milestone year promises to be an inspiring gathering for our entire research community.

This year’s symposium features internationally recognized speakers and an exciting lineup of poster presentations covering:

• Innovations in biomaterials for drug delivery
• Advances in tumor targeting, immunotherapy, and theranostics
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning for formulation design
• Novel approaches for lipid nanoparticle–mediated gene delivery

Since its inauguration in 1983, this symposium series has been a premier event in the drug delivery field, proudly hosted in Utah. We warmly welcome you to join us for outstanding scientific presentations, meaningful discussions, and the camaraderie that makes this meeting so special. And of course, we hope you’ll take time to enjoy the beautiful scenery of Salt Lake City and its surroundings.

Registration is open now! https://raddsutah.com/

Tour of the new Sorenson Center for Medical Innovation for some of the Pharmacy leadership team. “With advanced prototyping and assembly workshops, educational and collaborative learning spaces, and a first-of-its-kind Discovery Operating Suite for clinician and industry cross-training and development, the Sorenson Center for Medical Innovation (SCMI) stands as a testament to the University of Utah's legacy to medical device innovation”

We congratulate Huiqian Hu on his outstanding achievement of a successful PhD thesis defense. Our first PhD to integrate machine learning and AI into his research. He is a superstar!

A lovely send off for Dr. Randy Peterson, who stepped down as Dean of the College of Pharmacy and has led our college since 2017. He returns as full time a professor in Pharmacology and Toxicology. A dean’s portrait of him will hang in our building, and he has a named classroom! We wish him congratulations and luck in his future scientific endeavors!

Our department is excited to announce that Braxten Hornsby is the 2026 recipient of the Wolf Prize for Excellence in Teaching! The Wolf Prize comes with a $5000 award and bestows the recipient the honor of giving the commencement speech on behalf of the graduate students. Braxten is Dr. Lim’s 5th student to receive this award. Congratulations, Braxten!

Graduation 2026, that’s a wrap! Congratulations to our dept PhDs, our PharmDs, and all the other MS and PharmD students!

College of Pharmacy graduation banquet celebrating PharmD, PhD, and MS students! Intro and closing remarks by our new interim Dean, Dr. Dan Witt. What a great celebration of so many talented people 🥳. Graduation is this Friday at Kingsbury Hall…

Our dept faculty Dr. Yue Lu gave an excellent talk at the Vitae event tonight! The evening featured “top researchers giving TED-talk-style presentations, sharing their work that's making a difference in Utah and beyond.”