Current Protocols Editorial Board: Pharmacology

Dr. S. J. Enna received his B.A. degree from Rockhurst University, Kansas City, Missouri and both his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.  Postdoctoral training in pharmacology was completed at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, at F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel, Switzerland, and the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.  Dr. Enna spent 10 years on the faculty at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston in the Departments of Pharmacology and Neurobiology.  While at the University of Texas Dr. Enna was also a consultant for ICI-USA, Inc., Merck, Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Corporation, and Panlabs, Inc.  From 1986-1990, Dr. Enna was Senior Vice President and Scientific Director of Nova Pharmaceutical Corporation in Baltimore, and Executive Vice President from 1990-1992.  He is currently Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education as well as Professor of Physiology and of Pharmacology at the University of Kansas Medical School.  Dr. Enna served as chair of the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics at the University of Kansas Medical School from 1992 to 2003. Other previous academic appointments include Lecturer in the Department of Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore and Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans.

Dr. Enna served for six years as editor of The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and is currently co-editor of Current Protocols in Pharmacology and of xPharm, an on-line pharmacology reference work. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Biochemical Pharmacology and Executive Editor-in-Chief of Pharmacology and Therapeutics.  Besides his editorships, Dr. Enna serves on the editorial boards of Brain Research, Life Sciences and CNS Drug Reviews.  He has been the recipient of Research Career Development Awards from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute for Neurological, Communicative Disorders and Stoke.  Other awards include the John Jacob Abel Award from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the Daniel H. Efron Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and a PhARMA Foundation Excellence Award.  In recent years he has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of Abbott Laboratories and has served on the Board of Directors of the Life Sciences Research Office.

Among his current appointments is membership on the Basic Pharmacology Advisory Committee of the PhARMA Foundation.  Dr. Enna has held many elective offices in professional societies including the presidency of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET).  He is currently Secretary General of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR).

Dr. Enna's research interests include neuropharmacology, neurochemistry and neuropsychiatric disorders.  He has made significant contributions in defining the pharmacological and biochemical properties of neurotransmitter receptors, in particular those for GABA.  He has also conducted research into the effects of hormones on neurotransmitter receptor function and receptor responses to psychotherapeutics, the development of receptor antagonists for NMDA, cholinergic muscarinic and bradykinin receptors, and the identification of the cellular components of coincident signaling in brain. Dr. Enna's research is described in over 200 published research reports, reviews, and book chapters. He has edited two dozen books on topics ranging from neuropharmacology in general, to neurotransmitter receptors and GABA.

Michael Williams

Dr. Williams is currently holds Adjunct Professorships in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry in the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago and in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia . He received his Ph.D. (1974) from the Institute of Psychiatry and his Doctor of Science degree in Pharmacology (1987), both from the University of London. Before retiring in January, 2010, Dr. Williams worked for 34 years in the fields of drug discovery and development. From 1976 – 2000, he worked in the US-based pharmaceutical industry successively at Merck, Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories (West Point, PA), Nova Pharmaceutical (Baltimore, MD), CIBA-Geigy (now Novartis) Summit, NJ) and Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, IL). On retiring from Abbott in 2000 as Divisional VP for Neurological and Urological Research he worked as a consultant with several biotechnology/pharmaceutical companies in the US, Canada and Europe including Genset, Elan, Targacept, Acetlion and Newron. He also worked with universities and private investor groups in the areas of strategic and portfolio/pipeline planning, competitive assessment, business development, compound and company assessment and acquisition and IND/IB preparation. From October, 2001 until September 2002, he was VP of Drug Discovery and General Manager at Molecumetics, a chemistry-based biotech in Seattle, WA. He joined Cephalon, Inc. as Vice President of Worldwide Discovery Research at Cephalon, Inc., in West Chester, PA in 2003, a position he retired from in January, 2010. During his career in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Williams was involved in research teams that advanced some 60 new chemical entities to clinical trials for the potential treatment of: schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, GERD, stroke, depression, anxiety, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, pain, asthma, hypertension, anesthesia, renal dysfunction, arthritis, urinary incontinence, BPH, ADHD, substance abuse, obesity, erectile dysfunction, multiple myeloma, anaplastic large cell lymphoma, melanoma, colon cancer, solid tumors and sleep/wake disorders. Dr. Williams is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and a member of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) and the American Chemical Society (ACS).

He is Editor-in-Chief of Drug Development Research, Commentaries Editor for Biochemical Pharmacology and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. He is the author or co-author of over 300 research publications, book chapters and commentaries.

Roger Frechette

Roger Frechette, PhD, received his doctorate in organic chemistry from Wesleyan University and completed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University before beginning a career in pharmaceutical R&D. He is a co-founder of New England PharmAssociates, LLC (Beverly, MA), a company offering research and consulting services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies. He was also a co-founder of MaxThera, Inc. (Beverly, MA), a biopharmaceutical company developing novel antibacterial therapeutics. Previously, Dr. Frechette founded NEPAssociates, a sole-proprietorship drug discovery consultancy. Prior to this, Dr. Frechette held Drug R&D leadership positions at Paratek Pharmaceuticals (Boston) and at RiboGene (Hayward, CA). He began his pharmaceutical research career as a medicinal chemist at Johnson & Johnson's R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute in Raritan, NJ.

Dr. Frechette has been working in pharmaceutical R&D as a medicinal chemist, project manager and executive for more than 20 years. He is an inventor on 20 patents and an author of 22 peer-reviewed publications.

Beginning his career as a synthetic chemist, Terry Kenakin received a Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the Unversity of Alberta, Edmonton Canada. After a post-doctoral Fellowship at  University College London, U.K., he joined Burrough-Wellcome as an associate Scientist. From there he continued working in drug discovery at Glaxo Inc. and GlaxoWellcome.  He presently is a principal research scientist at GlaxoSmithKline Research and Development laboratories at Research Triangle Park, N.C. USA.

Dr Kenakin has been involved in drug discovery for over 30 years. Currently he is engaged in studies aimed at the optimal design of drug activity assays systems as well as the discovery and testing of molecules to block the entry of HIV-1 for treatment of AIDS. He is a member of numerous editorial boards as well as co-editor in Chief of the Journal of Receptors and Signal Transduction and, as well as numerous articles, has written 8 books on Pharmacology.

Dr. Paul McGonigle

Dr. Paul McGonigle is currently the Vice President for Scientific Affairs at PsychoGenics Inc., a behavioral neurobiology company, where his efforts are focused on the development and application of proprietary technologies to discover novel drugs for psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. Prior to joining PsychoGenics, he co-founded and served as the CEO of NeuroGenix Corp., a biopharmaceutical company established to use neurogenesis as the basis for the discovery of new treatments for CNS disorders. Before forming NeuroGenix, Dr. McGonigle was the Director of Psychiatric Disorder Research at Wyeth where he supervised all aspects of drug discovery related to psychiatric disorders and advanced several compounds to clinical trials. Prior to joining Wyeth, he was on the faculty of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania where his research focused on neurotransmitter receptors involved in psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. McGonigle has served on a number of NIH advisory panels and is an adjunct Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University School of Medicine.

Bruce Ruggeri

Dr. Ruggeri received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and pursued a post-doctoral fellowship at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. He served on the faculty of Hahnemann University for several years before joining Cephalon, Inc. where he is now Director of oncology research. His primary areas of interest lie in tumor molecular pathology, particularly the cell and molecular regulation of tumor angiogenesis and processes of malignant progression in solid tumors. He has expertise in systems tumor biology and in vivo pharmacology, particularly development and application of orthotopic models of human cancer in drug discovery. His current research involves study of small molecule molecular-targeted therapeutic agents, including angiogenesis inhibitors, modulators of DNA damage and repair, inhibitors of the proteasome; and small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitors for application against a variety of solid and hematopoietic tumors and myeloproliferative disorders.

Dr. Ruggeri has authored 53 peer-reviewed publications, five book chapters, and four patents. In addition to his editorial role for Current Protocols in Pharmacology, he serves as a reviewer for several oncology-related publications and the New Jersey Commission for Cancer Research, and also serves on the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Gastrointestinal Cancer and Biochemical Pharmacology.