Ann C. Bonham, professor in the Department of Medical Pharmacology and Toxicology, was named department chair. The change in leadership and recruitment of five new faculty positions is part of a major expansion of the basic biomedical sciences at the school. The growth parallels aggressive, simultaneous recruiting in several highly complementary areas, such as membrane biology, neurosciences and genomics.
Trained as a neuropharmacologist, Bonham specializes in the study of how the central nervous system controls the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems.
"The breakthrough in under-standing the human genome and its similarities to the genomes of other species has created new possibilities for drug discovery," she said. "To identify and validate these new drug targets, I will be bringing together a cadre of scientists who use genomic and functional approaches to answer fundamental questions about the function and structure of membrane proteins, including ion channels, receptors and other important components of signaling pathways."