Dr. Haian Fu is Professor and Chair of Pharmacology & Chemical Biology and Associate Dean for Translational Research at Emory University School of Medicine. He holds the Winship Cancer Institute Partner in Research Endowed Chair. He earned his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Fu joined Emory Pharmacology in 1994 after three years at the Harvard Medical School faculty. A pioneer in 14-3-3 protein research, his work focuses on targeting disease-associated protein-protein interactions (PPI), such as cancer-associated oncoPPI and neoPPI, to advance proximity modulating therapeutics, leading to more than 200 scientific publications. Dr. Fu is a dedicated educator, having trained numerous outstanding students and research scholars. As a team science driver, he leads multidisciplinary translational research programs and has served on the Steering Committees for the NIH Roadmap Initiative-Molecular Libraries Screening Centers Network (MLSCN), NIH/NCI Chemical Biology Consortium (CBC), and NCI Cancer Target Discovery and Development (CTD²) Network. He also co-directs NIH-funded Emory lung cancer programs (P01, P50). He is a co-founder of International Chemical Biology Society (ICBS) and past chair of ICBS Board of Directors, an elected fellow of AAAS and ASPET, and a member of the NCI Board of Scientific Counselors. He is recently honored with the ASPET Susan B. Horwitz Award in Cancer Pharmacology and the Association of Medical School Pharmacology Chairs (AMSPC) President’s Award for leadership in the field of pharmacology.

I have been at the Kirksville College of Medicine/ATSU in the Pharmacology department for 15 years and became chair of the department in 2015.  Since becoming chair, I have focused on making sure our Medical and Dental Pharmacology courses prepare our students for their board exam and clinical practice, providing faculty with an environment in which they can excel and pushing for their promotion.  My research is focused on studying ion channel gating and modulation to improve our understanding of function.  We are currently engaged in collaborations with the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio to study autonomic dysregulation in patients with long COVID and the University of Utah to investigate novel components of animal venom for selective effects on ion channels.   Since becoming Chair, I have been activity in AMSPC and have missed only one meeting (Columbia).

Sandeep Bansal, MBBS, MD, MBA, is a professor at the Burnett School of Medicine in Fort Worth, Texas, and a passionate medical educator with over two decades of excellence in teaching and curriculum innovation across international medical schools, having trained more than 10,000 medical students. He is an executive member of the Division for Pharmacology Education (DPE) of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) and currently serves as Chair and Editor of the Pharmacology Knowledge Objectives subcommittee of the DPE.  He has held leadership roles in transforming traditional medical curricula into innovative, organ systems-based, spirally integrated programs. As a founding faculty member at two new medical schools, he played a key role in designing and implementing active learning-based curricula.  Prior to his current role in Texas, Sandeep served as the course director of pharmacology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign and the Ross University School of Medicine, Commonwealth of Dominica. He now contributes significantly to the development and implementation of a student-centered, active learning curriculum, with a strong commitment to engaging learners in critical thinking and application-based problem solving through innovative instructional methods and technology.  Dr. Bansal is also the co-author of Learning Pharmacology through Clinical Cases, a case-based book that enables students to learn pharmacology in the context of real-world clinical scenarios.

I hold a Ph.D. in experimental psychology, postdoctoral experience in pharmacology and toxicology and currently serve as the Vice-Chair of Pharmacology and Toxicology, and a Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. I am honored to be the Chauncey Leake Distinguished Professor in Pharmacology and Director of the UTMB Center for Addiction Sciences and Therapeutics (CAST), an incubator for innovation to transform health and life sciences. I direct translational research efforts embedded in a strong collaborative effort with chemists, cell biologists, preclinical and clinical scientists to discover key neuromolecular targets that may be exploited toward the goal of improved diagnostics and safe therapeutics for substance use disorders (SUDs). Our collaborative team of chemists, cellular biologists, bioengineers, preclinical and clinical scientists focus on developing advanced diagnostics and therapeutics with the molecular precision to effectively prevent and manage SUDs. We have established a multitude of new cellular, behavioral and molecular tools to study these systems and to explore the biology of novel neuroprobes developed by our chemistry collaborators. My research has been continuously funded by NIH, industry and foundations for 30 years and we have generated seminal observations, new technologies and patents which are described in 180+ peer-reviewed publications and 35+ reviews and book chapters. My H-index is 66 and i10- is 176 (Google Scholar). I sustain a life-long commitment to fostering the career development of scientists with over 50 mentees who have crafted successful careers in academia, industry and government. My contributions have been recognized by the ASPET-Astellas Award for Translational Pharmacology, the Marian Fischman Memorial Award and the Mentorship Award from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD). I am past CPDD President, Senior Editor of Nature Neuropsychopharmacology, past ASPET Councilor and Secretary-Treasurer, and current nominee for ASPET President. I am an active educator and board member for community programs to foster knowledge of SUD sciences and evidence-based treatments.

Ali Salahpour obtained his PhD at University of Montreal working on GPCRs. He then did his Post-doctoral at Duke University focusing on dopamine neurotransmission. In 2009, he joined University of Toronto as Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology. In 2014 he was promoted to Associate Professor. He was Acting Chair in 2018 and was appointed Chair of the Department in 2023. The Salahpour lab continues to be interested in dopamine neurotransmission and focuses on the roles of Tyrosine Hydroxylase (TH), Dopamine Transporter (DAT) and Vesicular Monoamine Transporter 2 (VMAT2) in dopamine transmission and homeostasis.