Marie Donnely, ’05, was named Interim Assistant Superintendent for Business at Hewlett-Woodmere School District. Donnelly will oversee the business, human resources, transportation, food service, facilities, security, technology and nursing staff. She will also be responsible for the preparation and implementation of the annual budget.
Oyster Bay Superintendent Named LIU Dean of Education
Long Island University announced Dr. Laura Seinfeld as Dean for Education. Dr. Seinfeld joins LIU from Oyster Bay-East Norwich school district, where she has served as the Superintendent of Schools for the last 7 years. Dr. Seinfeld serves in a number of leadership positions in organizations including the Tri-State Consortium, the Nassau Council of School Superintendents (NCCSS) and the New York State Council of School Superintendents (The Council). She currently serves as the President of the NCCSS and as a member of The Council House of Delegates.
Dietary Supplement May Provide Alternative Cancer Treatment
Dr. Anait S. Levenson, Professor of Cancer Research and Pharmacology at the College of Veterinary Medicine, and Dr. Avinash Kumar, Assistant Professor at the College of Pharmacy, co-authored a study on prostate cancer published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research. The findings revealed that grape powder diet supplementation could be a beneficial chemopreventive strategy for obesity-related inflammation and prostate cancer progression. The project was supported by an award from the California Table Grape Commission and Dr. Levenson’s award from the National Institutes of Health.
American Library Association Publishes Hunter’s Archival Guide
The American Library Association published a third edition of Developing and Maintaining Practical Archives by Dr. Gregory Hunter, Professor of Library and Information Science. The book is considered the clearest and most comprehensive guide to the discipline. Dr. Hunter is co-inventor on four patents in the area of digital preservation submitted by the project team in the United States and the European Union.
Syracuse Orthopedics Taps LIU Alum for President
Dr. Brett Greenky, ’80, a premier joint replacement surgeon in the United States, is President of Syracuse Orthopedic Specialists. He also serves as the Co-Executive Director and Founder of Operation Walk Syracuse, a not-for-profit volunteer medical services organization that provides free surgical treatments for patients in developing countries and in the United States.
Sharks Score Coaches from Top Football Schools
The LIU football team added coaches with elite pedigrees, hiring Super Bowl champion Jim Cordle as Offensive Coordinator, and Mark Smith as Defensive Coordinator. Smith joins the Sharks from the University of Arkansas, with previous coaching stops at the University of Oklahoma and Southern Methodist University. Cordle was the offensive coordinator at Urbana University and previously coached at Ohio State University, his alma matter. He played four seasons in the National Football League with the New York Giants, highlighted by the team’s Super Bowl XLVI victory in 2012.
LIU Pharmacy Opens Metabolomics & Genomics Lab
Established in 1886, only three years after the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Arnold & Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences was the first school of its kind in the New York City metro region. Yet even more important than LIU Pharmacy’s illustrious history is its continuous innovation in research and education.
Led by Dr. John Pezzuto, dean of the College, LIU Pharmacy faculty is comprised of globally recognized researchers who make important contributions in drug discovery and development as well as molecular pharmacology. Dr. Pezzuto, winner of the prestigious Volwiler Research Award from American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, serves as the editor-in-chief of Pharmaceutical Biology and is widely known for identifying the cancer-prevention aspects of resveratrol, a chemical found in grapes and grape products.
The University recently tapped Dr. Bhaskar Das, a world-renowned researcher, to lead the new Core Facility in Medicinal Chemistry at LIU Pharmacy. Dr. Das joins LIU from The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He has received 20 grants from the National Institutes of Health, while his 18 patents have earned more than $100 million.
Dr. Jeffrey Idle, a world leader in the metabolomics and pharmacogenetics fields, is the co-discoverer of the first genetic polymorphism of cytochrome. His work has been instrumental in moving therapeutics towards precision medicine. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal Society of Biology, and the British Pharmacological Society and founder of the academic journal Pharmacogenetics.
The College recently opened a new, state-of-the-art Metabolomics and Pharmacology laboratory. The lab boasts liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) capabilities.
The lab’s high-powered instruments allow for the measurement of the large array of metabolites necessary for breakthroughs in the science. Amalgamating the faculty and resources of LIU Pharmacy paves the way for breakthroughs in research surrounding precision medicine.
“We believe that the way to provide precision medicine in the future is not just to measure genetic difference between people to explain individuality, but the interactions with the environment,” said Dr. Idle.
Dr. Idle points out that numerous other factors play a prominent role in the comprehensive analysis, such as prescription drugs, over the counter medicines, lifestyle factors, smoking, alcohol. “They all move the needle,” he said. “Genetics don’t really completely predict your behavior with a particular drug and what dose of the drug you need.”
Over the past two years, LIU Pharmacy has collaborated with labs in the Netherlands, Czech Republic and at other top universities in the U.S.
Additionally, LIU is one of five universities participating in a wide-ranging research project with The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The project awards $1.7 million to the five universities. Once completed, the research will help the FDA better understand how to employ its quality management resources when inspecting drug companies’ manufacturing operations, thus benefiting consumers.
LIU’s primary role is to provide manufacturing plants with pharmaceutical product and regulatory expertise. This ensures that product characteristics contributing to potential risk are identified and included in overall assessed risk– recalls, warning letters, adverse events, etc. — are identified and included in overall assessed risk.
Locating the “right” data from public and FDA sources also requires reconciling terminology so that the correct data are included. In turn, the relative potential impact on risk is accurately captured. FDA oversite effectiveness requires data curation and modeling of diverse and various sized data sources, and data scraping must be an efficient and iterative process.
“Our team goal is to be able to let the FDA know which problems are running a good return on investment, specifically in terms of best ways to promote product quality and availability,” said Dr. Kenneth Morris, Director of the LIU Lachman Institute for Pharmaceutical Analysis. “By in large the quality is very good, and while all oversight vehicles have their place, not all oversight vehicles are equally beneficial.”
There are two aspects to the project. Initial efforts will be directed towards developing a statistical model that will provide insights into the effectiveness of FDA efforts. Researchers will draw upon data from public sources as well as FDA-provided information to predict which inspection activities lead to higher drug product quality.
Given the challenges of inferring cause with observational studies, the second project will be comprised of behavioral experiments to develop a better understanding of the trade-offs between, and conditions under which, collaborative or adversarial approaches are more effective.
“Success means assisting the FDA in maximizing their resources more effectively. FDA budgets have historically been underfunded, so it is crucial for our team to provide help for best ways to demonstrate utility and continuous improvement,” Dr. Morris said. “Adverse drug events cause nearly one million emergency room visits each year while serious drug product recalls have increased each year over the last decade.”
From the Victorian era to the digital age, LIU Pharmacy continues to play a notable role in advancing pharmaceutical research and education.
Creating Pathways at JP Morgan Chase
Watching basketball has taught Justin Grant, ’06, a lot over the years.
The game’s most prominent influence is the impact it made on his post-secondary education. Grant, currently Vice President of Corporate Communications at JPMorgan Chase, grew up in Clinton Hill, just a short walk from the University’s campus in the heart of downtown Brooklyn. As a result, he was a die-hard fan of the Charles Jones-led LIU basketball teams of the late 1990’s. Grant’s avid fandom made his college selection an easy decision. “I always wanted to go to a school that has a Division I basketball team,” he said.
Watching basketball also taught him the importance of versatility. Grant admires and mimics the attitude of veteran players who adapt their style of play as they continue to improve their game – a mindset he applies to his own career. “It’s no different than Kobe Bryant, after every season going to work on a different part of his game,” Grant said. “He was a high-flying guy in the beginning of his career and then towards the end he evolved into a really good jump shooter and post up guy. The lesson for me in watching him develop was you always have to sharpen the skills you possess—while adding new ones to your toolbox.”
For those who work in the fast-paced world of digital media, change happens quickly. Not unlike the NBA’s 24-second shot clock, Grant gives himself a time limit.
“I try to operate with a 3-year clock,” he said. “The idea is: you get into a role, you learn the role, you absorb it, you grow in the role you do your absolute best. And then after three years you ask yourself. ‘How else can I contribute? What else can I do to grow my skillset? How else can I evolve?’”
Making a difference for minority communities through his work is something near and dear to Grant’s heart as well. He leads communications for JPMorgan Chase’s “Advancing Black Pathways” initiative, which the bank formed in 2019 to improve the financial health of the black community through a focus on three areas where Black Americans have historically trailed other groups: wealth creation, educational outcomes and career success.
Grant’s interest in capital markets began with his first job at Thomson Reuters in 2006. nearly three years as an equities reporter, he moved onto ABC News, where he worked as a reporter within the network’s investigative unit. His work on the Bernie Madoff story reignited his interest in how the capital markets function.
In 2013, Grant began his transition from traditional journalism to communications within the financial services sector beginning with a role as an editor at Fidelity Investments, where he oversaw content creation for a firm-wide audience of nearly 40,000 employees. He was then recruited for a role as Assistant Vice President at Oppenheimer funds which he held through 2018, when he was recruited to a Vice President position within Goldman Sachs’ Global Investment Research Group. He spent a year at GS before moving onto JPMorgan Chase.
“I’ve worked at some pretty prestigious places and I have colleagues from Ivy League schools,” he said. “I’m going toe-to-toe with them and I’m from Long Island University. That has always made me proud. You can go to our school and make a really good career for yourself with the education that you get here.”
FDA Project for Affordable Skin Treatments
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) awarded a $1 million grant to Dr. Grazia Stagni, Professor of Pharmacy. Dr. Stagni’s project will study methods to evaluate the bioequivalence of topical dermatological formulations, such as gels and creams. The results could lead to accelerated development of generic skin products, lowering their costs to patients.
World Class Gymnast Joins Shark Nation
Freshman Mara Titarsolej discussed her gymnastics career in an article published in De Stentor, a Dutch newspaper. Titarsolej, a member of LIU’s gymnastics team, joined the Dutch National Team in 2013 and represented the Netherlands at the 2015 World Championships. She helped the Dutch team qualify a full team to the Olympics for the first time in almost fifty years. In 2016, Titarsolej competed as an individual at the European Championships in Switzerland, placing fifth on floor exercise.