Pharm. D. pathways to biomedical research: the National Institutes of Health special conference on pharmacy research.

To address the shortage of research-trained pharmaceutical scientists (or doctor of pharmacy [Pharm.D.] scientists), a 2-day pharmacy research conference titled "Pharm.D. Pathways to Biomedical Research" was convened on December 13-14, 2006, at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus (Bethesda, MD). The workshop included invited speakers and participants from academia, industry, and government. Forty-two pharmacy schools were represented, including deans and clinical pharmaceutical scientists with current NIH funding. In addition, several pharmacy professional organizations were represented--American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, American College of Clinical Pharmacy, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and the Accreditation Council on Pharmaceutical Education. The workshop was divided into three sessions followed by breakout discussion groups: the first session focused on presentations by leading pharmaceutical scientists who described their path to success; the second session examined the NIH grant system, particularly as it relates to training opportunities in biomedical research and funding mechanisms; and the third session addressed biomedical research education and training from the perspective of scientific societies and academia. We summarize the discussions and findings from the workshop and highlight some important considerations for the future of research in the pharmacy community. This report also puts forth recommendations for educating future pharmaceutical scientists.

The changing environment of graduate and postdoctoral training in drug metabolism: viewpoints from academia, industry, and government.

This article is an invited report of a symposium sponsored by the Drug Metabolism Division of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics held at Experimental Biology 2002 in New Orleans. The impetus for the symposium was a perceived shortage in the supply of graduate students qualified for drug metabolism research positions in industry, academia, and government. For industry, recent hiring stems largely from the expansion of drug metabolism departments in an effort to keep pace with the demands of drug discovery and new technologies. In turn, regulatory scientists are needed to review and verify the results of the increased number and volume of studies required for drug development and approval. Thus the initial source of training, academia, has been forced to recognize these external hiring pressures while trying to attract and retain the faculty, postdoctoral scientists, and students necessary for active teaching and research programs. The trend of the expansion of the interdisciplinary nature of traditional drug metabolism to include emerging technologies such as pharmacogenetics, transporters, and proteomics and the implications for future needs in training and funding were acknowledged. There was also consensus on the value of partnerships between academia and industry for increasing student interest and providing training in disciplines directly applicable to industrial drug metabolism research. Factors affecting the sources of these trainees, such as federal funding, the number of trainees per institution, and recent issues with immigration restrictions that have limited the flow of scientists were also discussed.