Pharmacy - Driving the Future Success of Health Care

October is recognized as national pharmacy month and during this session, Gary Pollack, PhD '84, Dean, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (UB SPPS) will discuss how advances in pharmacy and the pharmaceutical sciences are leading transformational change in health care and how strategic new initiatives at UB SPPS are helping to lead these efforts.  

About Gary Pollack
Dr. Pollack received his undergraduate degrees in chemistry and psychology from Knox College (Galesburg, IL), and his PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the University at Buffalo. He spent nearly 26 years on faculty in the School of Pharmacy, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also was a division chair and the school’s first vice dean. Dr. Pollack subsequently served as dean of pharmacy at both Washington State University and the University of Toledo prior to coming home to Buffalo. In August 2021, he became the 12th dean of UB’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

He has taught a wide range of subjects in both the professional and graduate curricula, with an emphasis on pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. He was the founding director of North Carolina’s Center for Instructional Innovation in Pharmacy, has led changes in curricular delivery approaches in each of the institutions he has served, and has published in the area of teaching and learning. Dr. Pollack also has been a research mentor for students pursuing professional and graduate degrees, as well as postdoctoral scholars.

His research focus is on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs and toxicants in the central nervous system and his research group has made fundamental contributions to understanding the role of P-glycoprotein in limiting drug penetration into brain and in modulating pharmacologic response, and to defining the mechanisms and dynamics underlying the development of morphine tolerance. Dr. Pollack is a fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences.