Bernd Meibohm, PhD, FCP, FAAPS
Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs
Q: When did you join the faculty here at UTHSC?
A: “I joined the faculty here back in 1999. I was drawn here because the University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy is one of the top pharmacy schools in the country and it is embedded in one of the oldest academic Health Science Centers that allow multi-disciplined research and education.”
Q: What would you be doing if not Pharmacy?
A: “I know exactly what I would be doing. When I was at the University of South Carolina I was on the same floor as the marine biology program. They had their own island in the Caribbean that they would go to every summer with the students. I was like what am I doing here in the lab and they go out and have fun counting the critters on the island. I think whatever you end up doing as long as you have natural curiosity you will continue to grow.”
Q: What do you enjoy most about working with students?
A: “The thing I enjoy most is training students and then seeing them go out and being successful in their jobs. Knowing we had a little input and a hand in directing them in one direction or another, that is the most satisfying part of being in academia.”
Q: What is your current research and why are you passionate about it?
A: “One of the areas I am working in is understanding the pharmacokinetics of therapeutic proteins. Therapeutic proteins are the fastest growing segment in the medication market. Over 50% of development projects in the industry are therapeutic proteins as well as eight of the 10 top-earning drugs in the country. We are trying to understand a little better what distribution and elimination process determines what happens to this drug.
One subgroup that I am very much interested in is pediatric patients, specifically premature neonatal patients. Usually research is done in young healthy adults and then expanded a little upwards and downwards on the H scale so usually the pediatric patients are the last ones studied, if they are studied at all. Never the less, they need them and there is a huge gap so many practitioners rely on personal experience rather than a research based pharmacotherapy.”
Q: What is the most helpful advice you have received?
A: “One of the best pieces of advice that my dad gave me was he always said tomorrow a thousand new days is starting. Whenever you think you at the end of a road and you don’t know what is next, there are always new opportunities. We just need to take those opportunities and develop them then we are always moving forward.”
Q: If you were stranded on a desert island what one band would help keep your sanity?
A: “The Rolling Stones. There is only one band and that is the Rolling Stones. Everything else is far away from it.”