Jayanth Panyam, head of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Pharmaceutics, has been named the dean of Temple University’s School of Pharmacy, President Richard M. Englert and Executive Vice President and Provost JoAnne A. Epps announced today.

Panyam, who assumes his new role Nov. 1, has a long history of pharmaceutical teaching and research, and is now focused on investigating the mechanisms of nanotechnology-based anticancer drug delivery. 

“Jayanth Panyam is working at the cutting edge of pharmaceutical research, which makes him the perfect fit for Temple’s dynamic School of Pharmacy,” said Englert. “His impressive record of awards and honors will bring a higher level of visibility to the school, which has had an outstanding history for more than a century.”

“We are excited by Dr. Panyam’s vision for the pharmaceutical field’s future, his dynamic research and his zeal for quality teaching,” said Epps. “We know the faculty and students will be drawn to his leadership and plans for the future.”

Panyam earned his PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2003; a master of pharmaceutics from Banaras Hindu University in India in 1999; and a bachelor of pharmacy from The Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University in India in 1997.

“This is an exciting opportunity and comes at a vital time in our profession,” said Panyam. “Together with the outstanding faculty, students and staff of Temple University’s School of Pharmacy, we will have the opportunity to help reshape the profession within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and across the country.”

As a researcher, Panyam has amassed more than 11,000 citations of his research, which focuses on such cutting-edge areas as chemoprevention, drug delivery, nanotechnology and tumor targeting.

Panyam has won numerous honors for his work, including the Thomas Jefferson Ingenuity Award for Creativity and Ingenuity in Doctoral Research from the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He has also been named a Wilson Scholar by the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation and been selected as a member of the editorial advisory boards for the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Future Drug Discovery, and Cancers.

He is known at the University of Minnesota for his high-quality teaching, adopting what he calls “student-centric teaching methods,” and building cross-disciplinary proposals to advance research.  

A native of Chennai, India, Panyam came to the United States in 1999 as a graduate student. He joined Wayne State University in 2003 as an assistant professor. Since 2007, he has been on the University of Minnesota faculty, and he became a tenured professor and head of the Department of Pharmaceutics in 2015. He was appointed to an endowed professorship in targeted drug delivery in 2017. In addition, he has been a member of the Masonic Cancer Center in Minneapolis since 2007.

At Temple, Panyam leads a school with a distinguished history. The Temple School of Pharmacy began in 1901 in response to the growing demand for affordable, high-quality education at a time when the apprenticeship method was becoming obsolete. An increasing need for modern practitioners required modern facilities, and the School of Pharmacy emerged to meet the demand.

Today, the school educates future pharmacists and scientists, while supporting several specialty research facilities, foremost among which is the Moulder Center for Drug Discovery Research, a medicinal chemistry-based initiative established in 2009 through substantial support from alumni Lonnie, PHR ’80, and Sharon Moulder, PHR ’80.

The School of Pharmacy is also home to the largest and most respected graduate program in regulatory affairs and quality assurance. It is designed for working professionals in the pharmaceutical, biotech and device industries, as well as their complementary regulatory bodies, and is delivered through distance learning platforms.

Panyam succeeds Peter H. Doukas, the school’s longtime dean, who stepped down at the end of the 2018-19 academic year.