Chemistry Professor Receives Major Pharmaceutical Research Award from Industry Research Foundation

David Grainger, a Colorado State University professor of chemistry, has received the 2005 Award for Excellence in Pharmaceutics from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) Foundation. The award recognizes Grainger’s strong commitment to research innovations in pharmaceutics and in educating students and professionals in his field of pharmaceutical chemistry.

Grainger received his award earlier this month at the annual meeting of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists – a 13,000-member professional organization – in Nashville, Tenn.

The PhRMA Foundation annually grants Awards in Excellence to past awardees who received PhRMA Foundation support at the outset of their careers in a discipline important to the research-based pharmaceutical industry.

Grainger received a PhRMA Foundation advanced pre-doctoral fellowship in pharmaceutics as a graduate student in 1987, and he has contributed substantially to training, technical progress, innovation and advancement in the field since that time. Grainger uses his broad training across pharmaceutics, biotechnology, chemical engineering, polymer and analytical chemistry, biophysics and molecular biology to educate and perform research in materials in medicine, controlled drug delivery and surface properties of immobilized proteins and DNA.

"David’s work is making a difference in people’s lives," said Rick Miranda, dean of the College of Natural Sciences. "He’s also one of our top teachers and certainly deserving of this very prestigious award."

Grainger received his doctorate in 1987 from the University of Utah and joined the faculty at the Oregon Graduate Institute in 1989 where he began his research program. Grainger came to Colorado State in 1994 as an associate professor of chemistry. He was promoted to full professor in 1999.

His current research lab at Colorado State University is a mix of high school students, undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral associates who focus on applications of materials in medicine and biotechnology and who broadly collaborate with federal laboratories, medical schools, bioengineering and drug delivery programs nationwide. Grainger is also a recipient of the 2003 Colorado State University Alumni Association "Teacher of the Year" award, the USWest/Qwest 2000 Faculty Education Excellence Award and Colorado State’s College of Natural Sciences "Undergraduate Teacher of the Year" award in 2000.

Grainger’s many professional organizational and advising activities include serving on several government and industrial advisory boards and editorial boards of several prominent journals in the biomedical materials area, including "Biomaterials," "Journal of Biomedical Materials Research," "Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews" and "Journal of Biomaterials Science."  He has organized 10 major international symposia in his areas of interest, and he is a fellow and current vice-president-at-large of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, a non-profit public advocacy professional organization comprising the world’s top practicing bioengineers.

The PhRMA Foundation was established in 1965 to promote public health through scientific and medical research. The organization provides funding for research and for the education and training of scientists and physicians who have selected pharmacology, pharmaceutics, toxicology, informatics or health outcomes as a career choice.

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