Phil and Sandra Nudelman Endowed Lecture
The Nudelman Endowed Lecture series is dedicated to celebrating innovation in Pharmacy and features topics related to leadership, management, communication and entrepreneurship in the field of healthcare financing and delivery or in the field of oncology-oriented research, discovery and management. Phil and his wife, Sandra, created the endowed lecture in 2016. Phil Nudelman is a graduate of the School of Pharmacy, University of Washington, who went on to serve as President and CEO of Group Health Cooperative, and President and CEO of the Hope Heart Institute. His achievements over his distinguished career range from developing the first computerized pharmacy systems to serving on several Presidential commissions.
2025 Nudelman Lecture
The AI Frontier: Shaping the Future of Drug Development, Design, and Delivery
Guest Speakers
David Baker
Director, Institute for Protein Design; Henrietta and Aubrey Davis Endowed Professor in Biochemistry
Nobel laureate David Baker is a professor of biochemistry, HHMI investigator and the director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The Baker Lab develops protein design software and uses it to create molecules that solve challenges in medicine, technology and sustainability. Among his recent work is the development of powerful machine-learning methods for generating functional proteins. David is also an adjunct professor of genome sciences, bioengineering, chemical engineering, computer science and physics at the University of Washington. He has published over 640 research papers, co-founded 21 companies and been awarded more than 100 patents. Ninety of his mentees have gone on to independent faculty positions. David is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and a recipient of numerous awards, including the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. TIME named him among the world’s 100 Most Influential People in health. He received his PhD in biochemistry with Randy Schekman at the University of California, Berkeley, and did postdoctoral work in biophysics with David Agard at UCSF.
Gaurav Bhardwaj
Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, UW School of Pharmacy
Gaurav received his doctoral degree in Integrative Biosciences from the Pennsylvania State University. During graduate school, he developed computational methods for studying evolution of highly divergent protein families. He did his postdoc with Dr. Kit Lam at University of California, Davis and Dr. David Baker at University of Washington, Seattle. His postdoctoral work focused on computational design of hyperstable constrained peptides and macrocycles with atomic-level accuracy. His research interests include computational peptide design for enhanced cell permeability, oral bioavailability, and blood-brain barrier traversal, and high-throughput design of targeted peptide therapeutics.
Jay Panyam
Dean, UW School of Pharmacy; Professor, Department of Pharmaceutics
Dr. Jay Panyam was named dean of the UW School of Pharmacy in August 2023, following a 4-year stint serving as Temple University’s School of Pharmacy dean. Prior to his role at Temple, Panyam was an endowed professor and head of the Department of Pharmaceutics at the University of Minnesota’s College of Pharmacy. At Temple, Panyam focused on pharmacy education and research. He has extensive experience training pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists, supporting faculty in their advancement, and with student recruitment and admissions. A native of Chennai, India, Panyam came to the United States in 1999 as a graduate student. He earned his PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2003; a master’s in pharmaceutics from Banaras Hindu University in India in 1999; and a bachelor’s in pharmacy from The Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University in India in 1997. Panyam has won numerous honors for his work, including the Thomas Jefferson Ingenuity Award for Creativity and Ingenuity in Doctoral Research from the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He has also been named a Wilson Scholar by the Ralph C. Wilson Foundation and been selected as a member of the editorial advisory boards for the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Future Drug Discovery, and Cancers.