Dr. John Pezzuto Named Dean of WNEU College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
SPRINGFIELD — Dr. John Pezzuto has been named dean and professor of Pharmaceutics of the Western New England University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. His appointment will begin this summer.
“Dr. Pezzuto’s credentials as a world-renowned researcher, pharmaceutical administrator, and innovative educator for more than 35 years make him an outstanding addition to the Western New England University faculty,” WNEU Provost Linda Jones said.
Most recently, Pezzuto served as dean and professor of Pharmacy of the Arnold and Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York. Previously, he served as distinguished professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and held deanships at the College of Pharmacy, Nursing, and Health Sciences at Purdue University, as well as the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where he was the founding dean.
Pezzuto was the 2014 recipient of the Volwiler Research Award, the top research award from the American Assoc. of Colleges of Pharmacy. He was elected as a fellow of the American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science.
He is an author of over 600 publications, including the first report describing the cancer-preventive activity of resveratrol, a component of grapes and grape products such as red wine. This single manuscript has been cited over 5,000 times, and resveratrol is now in numerous clinical trials and the subject of more than 20,000 manuscripts.
Pezzuto is an inventor or co-inventor of several patents, the editor of six books, a member of more than 10 editorial boards of international journals, the former editor in chief of the International Journal of Pharmacognosy (1990-95), the former editor in chief of Combinatorial Chemistry and High Throughput Screening (1996-97), and the current editor in chief of Pharmaceutical Biology.
He has served on the National Cancer Institute subcommittee on cancer epidemiology, prevention, and control, and was the recipient of a Research Career Development Award from the National Cancer Institute (1984-89) and a research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (1990-91). He will be transferring major grant funding to Western New England University when he joins the faculty, and continuing research to explore the health benefits of grapes.