Prof Zhou Earnes Early Career Investigator Award

York College is proud to announce that Dr. Zhu Zhou of the Chemistry department has earned a 2023 American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics’ (ASCPT) award.

 The prize, known as the Darrell Abernethy Early Stage Investigator Award is granted annually and “intended to foster the growth of early career scientists.” It comes with $10,000 and “honors the memory of Darrell Abernethy, MD, PhD, who was a leader in clinical pharmacology and advocate for the discipline of clinical pharmacology.”

Dr. Zhou was nominated by Dr. Paine, a Professor at Washington State University, Dr. Zhang, Deputy Director at the Food and Drug Administration and Dr. Zhao from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dr. Zhou, who also recently received a National Institute of Health/National Institute of General Medical Sciences grant of $794,611, said, “The American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, founded in 1900, [whose] “primary interest is to advance the science and practice of clinical pharmacology and translational science for the therapeutic benefit of patients and society.” It is said to be the largest scientific and professional organization serving the disciplines of clinical pharmacology and translational science.

"I am thrilled to receive the 2023 ASCPT Darrell Abernethy Early Stage Investigator Award, especially since I met with Dr. Abernethy when I was a visiting scholar at the FDA back in 2017," said Dr. Zhou. "Conducting an impactful project in the geriatric field to honor the memory of Dr. Abernethy is my greatest privilege. I am fortunate to have many people's support along the way, and the acknowledgment could be very long, thus, I just want to say thanks to all who have helped me. Special thanks to my department, my school, mentors and nominators on this award, Drs. Paine, Zhang, Zhao, also ASCPT. Last but not least, I have one Postdoctoral Fellow and one graduate student position available in my lab. Please contact me directly if you are interested in pharmacokinetics research.”

 Zhou’s qualifications meet and exceed the criteria for the award which include, “qualifications and track record of the candidate, potential impact of the work; and environment and institutional support for the work.”  

 Provost Derrick Brazill expressed his support of the professor and her application. "We are overjoyed by this well-deserved honor for Dr. Zhou, said Dr. Brazill. “She is an exemplar of York's mission to seamlessly merge scholarship and pedagogy.  This synergy allows our students to learn from and work with high caliber researchers, enriching the experience for both our faculty and our students."

Additionally, her meeting proposal-related to Antibody-drug conjugate drugs in oncology got accepted in the 2023 ASCPT meeting. It will be co-chaired with a scientist from Genentech/Roche.  “There are only 10 proposals of more than 60 [that] got selected for the 2023 ASCPT meeting, so I am very proud of it,” said Professor Zhou, who has published numerous articles in her still young career. 

With her “broad background in pharmaceutical science with specific training in pharmacokinetics and expertise in using in vitro, in vivo, and computational approaches to predict and evaluate the disposition of natural products and drugs. Dr. Zhou’s lab is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health. Her areas of expertise include, Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics, drug/drug interactions regulatory science.  

 Congratulations to Dr. Zhou as she continues her impressive scholarship!