Faculty

For your convenience, you may also download a complete list of faculty biographies for the Quality of Medical Products and Public Health Course.

Brian Donnelly, PhD, is Director of the Americas Region, Global Security, Pfizer Inc in New York, New York. He is currently responsible for coordinating investigations of counterfeit Pfizer pharmaceutical products in the United States and Canada.

Prior to joining Pfizer, Dr. Donnelly spent 21 years as a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, during which time he was assigned to the FBI Laboratory and the New Haven Divisions. As a Special Agent Dr. Donnelly was responsible for the investigation of several high profile cases including: the Michael Swango, M.D. medical serial killer investigation, the Yale University bombing investigation and he was the Connecticut case agent for the Amerithrax (anthrax mailings) investigation. He has received several honors and awards from the FBI, the Department of Veterans Affairs and a number of United States Attorneys Offices.

Dr. Donnelly received his PhD in the areas of Pharmacology and Toxicology from Saint John’s University, New York in 1990 and is also a registered Pharmacist in the state of New York. He has presented and published extensively in the field of Forensic Toxicology and lectures regularly to medical and law enforcement on the subjects of Health Care Serial Killers and Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Celine Caillet is a pharmacist and former resident of the Hospital of Toulouse, France. Following her MSc in Epidemiology and Public Health in Bordeaux, France, she completed her University of Toulouse PhD in drug safety in Laos. During her PhD, Céline also taught pharmacology at the University of Health Sciences (Vientiane) and the Faculty of Medicine. She joined IDDO-WWARN as Scientific Coordinator of the Medicine Quality Scientific Group in May 2015. Dr Caillet is author of several articles on drug safety and she is a co-author of a book chapter on pharmacovigilance and poor quality medicines in resource-limited countries (to be published). She is also co-author of a review on antimalarial quality and drug resistance.

Darash Desai is a Senior Research Scientist at Boston University, serving as the Technical Lead for the PharmaChk platform and Technical Advisor for the Partnership for Global Health Technologies. His work there is multipronged and focuses on the design and development of need-based global health technologies that deliver social impact in low-income countries. His doctoral work at Boston University focused on the development of PharmaChk, a portable medicines quality screening tool. This work is now being extended as a portable platform for analyte quantification that leverages the unique binding properties of DNA aptamers to small molecule targets. His efforts in both experimentation and computation have been published in journals including PNAS, Lab on a Chip, and the American Journal for Tropical Hygiene and Medicine. His work on PharmaChk has also appeared in media outlets including Scientific American, NPR, and the Wall Street Journal. Darash obtained his masters and Ph. D. from Boston University in biomedical engineering and holds a B.S. in biochemistry and physics together with minors in computer science and mathematics from Stetson University in DeLand, FL.

David Gaul earned his PhD at Georgia Institute of Technology, performing research both as an organic and analytical chemist.  The work of his post-doctoral fellowship focused on molecular and structural biology.  After several years working in small technology-based companies, he returned to Georgia Tech to work with Professor Facundo Fernández conducting metabolomics and lipidomics research utilizing advanced mass spectrometry instruments and techniques.  He is currently a research scientist in the lab investigating metabolomic disease profiling for use as clinic tools.  David also leads the metabolomic and lipidomic services available in System Mass Spectrometry Center at Georgia Tech.

Jude Nwokike, BPharm, MSc, MPH, RAC is the Director of the Promoting the Quality of Medicines (PQM) Program of U.S. Pharmacopeia where he leads about 60 experts working in 34 countries to advance pharmaceutical quality systems. He has held multiple technical leadership positions in regulatory systems and pharmacovigilance. He joined USP from the US FDA where he served as the FDA’s PEPFAR liaison contributing to the CDER ARV tentative approval program. He has published peer-review journal articles on medical products regulation and pharmacovigilance and developed globally adopted tools.

He serves on international technical working groups and professional scientific associations and is an advocate for pharmaceutical quality assurance systems and regulatory workforce development.

Marya Lieberman is an analytical chemist at the University of Notre Dame, USA. Her group specializes in creating inexpensive and easy-to-use test cards that help people solve problems outside a laboratory.  Applications include detection of falsified and substandard medicines, monitoring iodized salt quality and population iodine nutrition status, detecting adulteration of milk, presumptive identification of illicit drugs, and evaluation of toxins in the environment.  Her group collaborates with researchers and caregivers at AMPATH/MTRH in Eldoret, Kenya;  the College of Medicine in Blantyre, Malawi, St Mary’s Hospital in Lacor, Uganda, and the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia.  

Michael Deats joined the WHO in 2011 as the project manager responsible for the design and implementation of the Global Surveillance and Monitoring system for substandard and falsified (SF) medical products. The following year he was appointed Group Lead for Substandard and falsified medical products within the Essential Medicines Department where he manages a team who receive reports, provide technical support, issue Global alerts and undertake secretariat duties for  the Member State Mechanism for SF medical products.

Prior to joining the WHO Michael was the head of enforcement for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the United Kingdom (2005-2011). He had responsibility for 45 investigators, inspectors, lawyers, and analysts. He had responsibility for the investigation of all major breaches of medicines regulation, through to criminal prosecution. He led the largest successful investigation in Europe of falsified medicines entering hospitals and pharmacies. He is the author of the MHRA’s first Falsified medicines strategy and Enforcement strategy.

Whilst with the MHRA Michael launched the illegal internet pharmacy campaign known as Operation Pangea, now coordinated by INTERPOL.

From 1975-2005 Michael was a Police Officer in the UK, based in London but working Internationally, specialising in the investigation of organized crime. He attended the Police Staff College, Bramshill, both as a student and visiting lecturer to the Association of Chief Police Officers, and International Command Course. He retired in the rank of Detective Superintendent.

Michael has worked in over 60 Countries worldwide.

Muhammad Zaman is Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor of Biomedical Engineering and International Health at Boston University. Prof. Zaman’s current research is focused on developing robust technologies, and systems level solutions, to improve the quality of medicines. His work on global health research and education has appeared in Science, Nature Reviews, PNAS and other leading journals of the field. Scientific American has named technologies from the Zaman lab among the top 10 technologies that will change the world.

His forthcoming book Bitter Pills (Oxford University Press, 2017), looks at the global challenge of substandard and counterfeit drugs and the need for integrated solutions, ranging from innovation and technology to public health and regulation, to address the global crisis in the prevalence of substandard drugs and how they relate to global anti-microbial resistance challenges.

Paul Newton is an infectious disease physician who directs the Lao-Oxford-Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Trust Research Unit at Mahosot Hospital, Vientiane, Laos. He is also Professor of Tropical Medicine in Oxford, Hon Professor at the National University of Laos and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Visiting Scholar at Boston University. His main interests are the epidemiology and management of fevers in rural Asia and the history, epidemiology and impact of poor quality medicines and how their quality can be improved.

Raffaella Ravinetto holds a Pharmacy Master Degree from Torino University, a Postgraduate Diploma in Tropical Medical Biology from the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine, and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from KU Leuven.

After being a Clinical Research Scientist in the private pharmaceutical sector, she worked in humanitarian programs in the Balkans and Africa. In 2002, she joined Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), where she followed various dossiers on access to/quality of essential medicines, while performing field assessments in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Since 2006 to 2016, she was the head of the Clinical Trials Unit at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp, the coordinator of the Switching the Poles Clinical Research Network, and the scientific coordinator of QUAMED, a North-South Network that promotes evidence-based strategies for universal access to quality-ensured medicines.

She is currently a senior researcher at the ITM Public Health Department, in charge of a portfolio of research, networking and advocacy on medicines in low- and middle-income countries, and of a network on research standards and ethics in low- and middle-income countries. She’s a member of the ITM Institutional Review Board (IRB).

She was president of the Italian branch of MSF (2007-2011). She’s the chairperson of MSF Ethics Review Board, and an ethical advisor to some EU-funded research projects

Richard Laing, originally trained as a medical doctor, Dr. Laing worked for the Ministry of Health in Zimbabwe for over 18 years, during which time he undertook postgraduate Masters and Doctoral studies on Community Health for Developing Countries and on Comparative Health Systems & Policy Analysis. After receiving his degrees, he spent 13 years working for Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and establishing the International Network for the Rational Use of Drugs.

Following his work with MSH, Dr. Laing taught international publish health at the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) before joining WHO as a medical officer.  At WHO, he was responsible for editing the Essential Drugs Monitor and for leading the team responsible for Medicines Evidence and Information for Policy. He was one of the authors of the Priority Medicines for Europe and the World report 2004 (and the update in 2013), and of the report From Access to Adherence The Challenges of Anti Retroviral Treatment. He has been engaged in working on measurement of medicines pricing and availability as part of the joint WHO/HAI project on Medicine prices. Working with IMS Health, he has reported on the impact of the global recession on the pharmaceutical sector. Recently he has published research on the availability and price of chronic disease medicines. He was also the editor for the third edition of the World Medicines Situation Report. Dr. Laing has rejoined the faculty at BUSPH and will be teaching on pharmaceutical topics within the Pharmaceuticals Program.

In addition to his BUSPH post,  he holds a faculty appointment at the University of Western Cape in South Africa where he teaches short and distance learning courses related to Pharmaceuticals Access. His research activities relates to global access to insulin, development of core and composite indicators for pharmaceutical systems and evaluation of pharmaceutical company access programs.

Dr. Sangeeta Vaswani Chatterjee is a Branch Chief in the Division of Supply Chain Integrity at FDA.   She was previously a Branch Chief within the Center for Tobacco Product’s Office of Compliance and Enforcement and a Team Leader within the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion.  Prior to joining FDA, Dr. Chatterjee held positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Global Regulatory Strategy and Global Labeling and Promotion Compliance. She completed a Regulatory Affairs fellowship at Eli Lilly and Company, during which she also served as an adjunct professor at Butler University. Dr. Chatterjee earned her Doctor of Pharmacy Degree from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, PA.

Souly Phanouvong joined the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) Convention in 2002. He is the Director for USP’s Global Public Health Asia. Prior to this post, he served as Sr. Manager for Asia of Promoting the Quality of Medicines (PQM) funded by United States Agency for International Development and the President’s Malaria Initiative. He has over 28 years of national, regional and international experiences in medicines policy, regulation, and practical expertise in medicines quality. He has worked in many countries and organizations in different capacities, including Laos, Hungary, Australia, Switzerland, and United States of America. He holds a bachelor degree in Pharmacy, a PharmD, and two PhDs.

Stephen Zambrzycki is currently an analytical chemistry graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology under the advisement of Dr. Facundo Fernández. His current research focuses on portable instrumentation evaluation for counterfeit medicines and the development of sampling and ionization techniques for mass spectrometers. Prior to his graduate school career, Stephen received a bachelor of science in forensic science and chemistry at the University of New Haven.

Tim Muntinga is PhD student at the University of Oxford, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, Centre for Evidence-based Medicine. Before he completed a MSc in Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He has 10+ years of internet consulting and research experience in both commercial and non-commercial settings.

Veronika Wirtz, MSc, PhD is Associate Professor of Global Health at Boston University School of Public Health where she teaches courses in health systems, pharmaceuticals in public health, and non-communicable diseases. She is a Visiting Professor of the National Institute of Public Health (INSP) in Mexico where she worked as a researcher from 2004-2012. Her main research focus is on health system strengthening and program evaluations of medicines access and utilization. Her interest and expertise include medicines price analysis, generic medicines policies, access to medicines for non-communicable diseases and the role of the private sector to promote equitable access and efficient use of medicines in low and middle income countries. Her work has been published widely in international, peer-review journals including The Lancet, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, British Medical Journal, Pharmacoeconomics and Health Policy. From 2014 to 2016 she was the Co-Chair of The Lancet Commission on Essential Medicine Policies.  Since 2016 she is Associate Editor of Health Systems & Reform, a leading journal publishing health system and policy research.

Education:

Ph.D., School of Pharmacy, University of London, UK

M.Sc. in Clinical Pharmacy; School of Pharmacy, University of London, UK