Recruiting: James Black Chair in Pharmaceutical Science/Director of the Institute for Pharmaceutical Science
Overview
King’s College London has created a new Chair in Pharmaceutical Science in honour of Sir James Black who, as Professor of Analytical Pharmacology at King’s, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 for his work on ‘beta-blockers’ to control heart rate, an approach he then applied to develop anti-histimine receptor drugs that are used to treat peptic ulcers.
The principal role of the Chair will be as Director of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science (IPS).
Applicants must have proven leadership skills, a strong established record of research, and the ability to foster and add focus to multi-disciplinary collaborations within the College and its associated NHS partner trusts through King’s Health Partners, and externally with other academic, clinical and industrial partners. They will also normally direct their own internationally competitive research programme in an area of pharmaceutical science.
This high profile position offers an excellent opportunity to establish a world class Centre of Excellence in pharmaceutical science in both teaching and research, with exceptional opportunities for carrying out translational research in a truly multi-disciplinary environment that integrates basic science with clinical translation and practice.
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Director
As Director of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science (IPS), you will manage the research and budgets of nearly 60 scientists and technicians in the Institute which has five component Sections (Chemical Biology, Drug Delivery, Pharmaceutical Biophysics, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Clinical Practice and Medication Use). You will normally be expected to bring your own research group with internationally outstanding research in some aspect of pharmaceutical science.
You will also work with the Heads of the relevant teaching departments to ensure excellent teaching by Institute members, and particularly of Institute courses; and provide leadership for integrated pharmaceutical science research within King’s and with its clinical, industrial and academic partners.
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Teaching by IPS
Research and teaching are managed separately at King’s College London. Research and general line management are through the Director of the Institute, teaching is via the Heads of teaching departments. Most IPS staff are members of the Departments of Pharmacy or Pharmacology and Therapeutics including the Heads of these Departments (currently Professors Peter Hylands and Sue Brain respectively), although some are members of Physiology, Biochemistry or Chemistry Departments .
It is the responsibility of the Director to work with these Heads of Department to ensure there is an effective balance between teaching and research of all staff, enabling overall excellence in both areas, and staff recruitment is balanced to meet the needs of both. This entails good communication, planning and leadership by all concerned, which fortunately are features of the Institute and more broadly of the School of Biomedical Sciences and King’s. Overall, about 70% of the time of most staff is expected to be involved in their research with the remainder on teaching, pastoral care and related administration.
Undergraduate courses run from the Institute are the MPharm (four-year professional Pharmacy degree), and the BSc in Pharmacology (with an optional joint honours with Molecular Genetics). MSc courses are in Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science, and Clinical Pharmacology.
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Leadership within King's College London
A broader group of King’s academics interested in medicines are members of the Institute’s Executive Board. These represent King's Department of Clinical Pharmacology, King’s Health Partners’ Pharmaceutical Sciences Clinical Academic Group, and Quintiles, our partner for phase 1 clinical trials located on the Guy’s campus. These groups work to integrate and direct the wide range of pharmaceutical research across King’s and its clinical partners, providing an exceptional opportunity for optimizing interactions along the entire drug discovery pathway.
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Clinical Partners
The Institute of Pharmaceutical Science is a key element of the wider King’s Health Partners, which is one of the UK’s five Academic Health Sciences Centres. It brings together King’s College London with its three successful NHS Foundation Trusts.
The Partners aim to create a centre where world-class research, teaching and clinical practice are brought together for the benefit of patients. We want to make sure that the lessons from research are used more swiftly, effectively and systematically to improve healthcare services for people with physical and mental health care problems. This is about providing a world-class service.
The working unit of King’s Health Partners is the Clinical Academic Group. The Pharmaceutical Sciences Clinical Academic Group comprises three of the UK’s leading trust pharmacy departments, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTFT), King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust (KCHFT) and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaMFT), working with King’s Institute of Pharmaceutical Science and the Quintiles Drug Research Unit at Guy’s.
Of the 1600 people in this Clinical Academic Group, there are many pharmacists (most of whom are qualified at least to Master’s level) and significant numbers of scientists, medical doctors, pharmacy technicians, pharmacy/pharmacology students (undergraduate and postgraduate) and administrative and support staff.
NIHR Biomedical Research Centres have invested heavily in creating the infrastructure for experimental medicine in our Trust Hospitals. These include the conversion of five floors of the Guy’s Tower into an Experimental Medicine Hub, including a Clinical Research Facility, Quintiles phase 1 trials unit, a Centre for Translational Medicine and a Joint Clinical Trials Office, a pharmacy manufacturing unit for producing medication on site, and a human stem cell laboratory.
The BRC in Mental Health at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and the Institute of Psychiatry has also made major investments in research and infrastructure of pharmaceutical interest including biomarkers of the onset of neurodegeneration, and powerful bioinformatics approaches to analyzing anonymised patient databases.
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Industrial Partnerships
Academics in IPS have a multiplicity of collaborations with industry (e.g., Pfizer, GSK, Vifor, GW Pharma, Verona Pharma, Helperby, Novartis, Unilever, Reckitt) which have led to the award of research grants, consultancy agreements, CASE studentships and Knowledge Transfer Partnerships.
The Institute has particularly close links with Quintiles, the clinical trials specialists who have the entire14th floor of the Guy’s Tower adapted as a state- of-the-art facility for phase 1 clinical trials. This is one of the five floors of the Guy’s Tower that form an Experimental Medicine Hub (see Clinical Partners).
The IPS retains close links with its highly successful spin off companies, Proximagen and MedPharm.
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Wider Academic Partners
Global Medical Excellence Cluster brings together five top UK life and medical science Universities (King’s College London, University College London and Imperial College London with Oxford and Cambridge) in partnership with GlaxoSmithKline, GE Healthcare, Pfizer UK, The Maudsley Hospital and The Royal Marsden Hospital. Its headquarters is at the Guy’s Campus of King’s College London.
GMEC’s vision is to improve patient outcomes and achieve a globally competitive position in biomedical science and innovation by increasing cutting edge medical research, improve collaboration between academic, clinical and industrial partners and attract increased inward investment.
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