Dean, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
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Dr. James “Jim” McKerrow is the dean of Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UC San Diego Health Sciences. Dr. McKerrow came to UC San Diego from UC San Francisco, where he served as professor of pathology and director of the Center for Discovery and Innovation in Parasitic Diseases, a consortium of academic and industry scientists dedicated to the discovery and development of new drugs for neglected tropical diseases.
Dr. McKerrow has a wealth of experience in natural product research and drug discovery and development. Dr. McKerrow founded and served as chief executive officer of Demeter Pharmaceuticals, a nonprofit company focusing on acquisition and screening of the largest marine natural products library in the United States.
He is an active teacher and mentor in graduate and postdoctoral programs, lectures to medical and health profession students and has hosted underrepresented students each year for summer research internships. Committed to fostering science education in the community, he gives talks each year to elementary and high school students, and has presented three public lectures in the “Ask a Scientist” series in San Francisco.
He is a member of the American Society for Cell Biology, American Society of Microbiology, American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, American Society of Parasitologists and the American Society of Immunologists. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Chemical Biology and Drug Design and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. He has co-authored more than a dozen book chapters, published more than 250 articles and has been a keynote speaker at numerous conferences and symposia. His many honors include the Gregor Mendel Honorary Medal from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the 2005 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the State University of New York (SUNY), Stony Brook.
Dr. McKerrow completed his residency training at UC San Francisco in pathology and his internship in Internal Medicine, as well as his medical degree, at SUNY, Stony Brook School of Medicine. Dr. McKerrow completed his doctoral degree in biology at UC San Diego and received his bachelor of science degree in both chemistry and biology at Haverford College in Haverford, Penn.