Alumni and Development News
Get in touch with your school! SOP.alumni@ucdenver.edu
Greetings to our world-wide alumni wherever you are — in local community, retail chain and hospital pharmacies, pharmaceutical and biotech industries and numerous other areas of service. Let us know where you are and what you are doing. We look forward to your continuing contact. When sending new addresses, also let us know if you'd like them published in the newsletter for your classmates' use.
AfterCollege Job Resource Center
Alumna recognized for her pioneering service in the Navy
Ret. Captain Katherine “Kay” Keating, BS ’48, of Beulah, Colo., was inducted into the 2008 Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame on March 11, in honor of her significant contributions helping elevate the status of women veterans.
Keating, who grew up in Pueblo, Colo., was attending the School of Pharmacy when World War II began. She enlisted in the Navy in 1942 and was among the first women inducted into the WAVES, the women’s branch of the Navy at the time. Because she could type, Keating was trained to be a radio operator and served in Hawaii listening to radio signals and typing code translations.
“There was a war on. It was my duty to serve,” she said.
After the war, she returned to pharmacy school, graduating in 1948. When she was offered the chance to join the reserves, Keating transferred to the Navy’s Medical Service Corps to become the Navy’s first woman pharmacist and was assigned to head up the Navy’s pharmacist technicians’ school. She served during three wars, becoming the first woman to rise from the rank of seaman to captain.
One of her assignments in the Navy was being assigned to a hospital ship off Korea transporting wounded soldiers to U.S. military hospitals in Japan. Assigned to the USS Haven, Keating became one of the first women officers to relieve a man at sea. In 1953, when the USS Haven was chosen to host a prisoner of war exchange, United Nations officials chose Keating to be an official witness.
In 1954, her ship carried wounded French paratroopers home from Vietnam after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. During the Vietnam War, she worked in U.S. Naval hospitals in Japan, helping treat the wounded American soldiers.
After serving 30 years in the Navy, Keating retired in 1972, returning to her Colorado home in Beulah.
In the 1990s, she answered the call to duty again when a group of women veterans began working to establish the Women in Military Service for America Memorial in Washington, D.C. Located at Arlington National Cemetery, the memorial was dedicated in 1997 and honors women who have served or are serving with the U.S. Armed Forces starting with the American Revolution.
Gathering evidence for the public good
Luis G. Valerio, Jr., PhD ’98, a toxicologist with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, didn’t envision himself an advocate for the public at the onset of his career.
While Valerio’s early research career centered on basic science, his desire to more directly impact people’s lives with the science of toxicology eventually led him to focus his work in public policy. As a pharmacology/toxicology reviewer for the FDA, he assesses the safety and efficacy of new therapeutic drugs for gastroenterology, specifically ulcerative colitis, autoimmune hepatitis and Crohn’s disease.
Valerio shares his knowledge with School of Pharmacy students as an adjunct professor for special projects in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. “I like where I work now and want to stay there, but I also want to stay connected with the school,” he said. “I want to give back to the school which had such an impact on my career, so this arrangement is perfect.”
Valerio received his doctorate in pharmaceutical sciences from the School of Pharmacy in 1998. While at the SOP, he received two predoctoral fellowships to work with Dennis Petersen, PhD, professor of pharmacogenetics and pharmacology,
and John Thompson, PhD, professor of medicinal chemistry. In 2000, he completed his postdoctoral research as a gastroenterology fellow with the School of Medicine. He earned a postdoctoral research fellowship from the National Science Foundation to work in Barcelona, Spain, where he focused on the enzymology and role of oxidative and reductive enzymes in metabolism.
Upon returning to the United States, Valerio wanted a change from basic research and try applied science. He had developed an interest in consumer product safety and took a position as senior scientist in product safety at Mary Kay Inc., a skin care and cosmetics company based in Dallas, Texas.
After three years of safety testing dermatological products in a business driven environment, Valerio was ready to return to a more science-based environment, which led him to the FDA.
“I wanted to get closer to the science that goes directly to the public,” he said. “I wanted to work at the FDA because it’s a place where science and policy come together. There, I could use scientific rationale with regulatory laws to approve or permit products that consumers are exposed to. I felt that was closer to the real world.”
In 2003 he joined the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in College Park, Md, as a toxicology reviewer for the premarket safety assessment of food additives, such as flavoring agents, GRAS ingredients (“generally recognized as safe" by the Food and Drug Administration) and super sweeteners. He then moved to the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) Office of New Drugs as a pharmacology/toxicology reviewer assessing the safety and efficacy of new medical drugs.
He recently accepted a position as toxicologist with the CDER Office of Pharmaceutical Science, Infomatics and Computational Safety Analysis Staff (ICSAS). ICSAS is an applied regulatory research unit that performs predictive toxicity screening of drugs for human adverse health effects and critical endpoints in the safety evaluation and regulatory approval of drugs such as carcinogenicity, mutagenicity and reproductive toxicity -- endpoints that cannot be tested in humans.
Valerio develops the predictions in silico using advanced computer software and complex quantitative structure-activity relationship modeling of drugs.
Valerio has served as an expert for the United Nations World Health Organization/Food and Agriculture Organization Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives. He has served as an FDA expert toxicology witness in federal government criminal cases involving unapproved food additives and drugs supporting the agency’s enforcement efforts to protect the public’s health.
He was awarded a life-time visiting professor appointment at a private medical university in Lima, Peru; has authored more than 30 publications and has served on the editorial board of Toxicological Reviews. He is associate editor of Toxicology Mechanisms and Methods and was chosen to appear on a national multinetwork television broadcast for the Department of Health and Human Services as a role model encouraging Hispanics to work in U.S. government positions.
His professional interests include xenobiotic metabolism, and predictive modeling of the carcinogenicity, hepatotoxicity, and reproductive toxicity of drugs. In his free time, Valerio enjoys traveling with his family, learning about other languages and cultures, and outdoor activities such as fresh water fishing. Valerio, who grew up in Rye, Colo., lives with his wife, Carmen, and their two children in Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.
Alumni contact information
SOP.alumni@ucdenver.eduOR
Director of Communications and Alumni Affairs
School of Pharmacy
C238-L15, Academic Office 1
12631 E. 17th Avenue
Aurora, CO 80045
Phone: 303-724-1234
Fax: 303-724-2637
E-mail: dana.brandorff@ucdenver.edu
Opportunities for giving
Alumni and friends can make a difference through the annual giving and endowment campaigns and other special funds. Your contributions are critical to meet increasing demand for scholarships, student support services and cutting-edge health care research. Here are some ways you can help:
- $20,000 and up - have your company become a corporate sponsor
- $9,000 - sponsor a 1/2 tuition resident scholarship
- $2,000 - sponsor a seminar in the SOP distinguished seminar series or buy a computer for a needy student who cannot afford the computer requirement
- $1,500 - sponsor a student to attend a national meeting
- $750 - become a Career Day Sponsor to promote student job opportunities
- $75 - $200 - student registration costs for a national meeting
- $75 - $250 - purchase library materials for student use through the Office of Student Services.
In addition, there are others ways of giving to the school which may involve favorable tax benefits. These include:
- Remember the School of Pharmacy in your Will
- Make a gift that will pay lifetime income to you-or to a friend or loved one
- Designate the school as a beneficiary of your life insurance policy or retirement plan
- Contribute gifts of real property and appreciated assets
Sheldon Steinhauser, Development Officer
CU Foundation
School of Pharmacy
C238-L15, Academic Office 1
12631 E. 17th Avenue
Aurora, Colorado 80045
Phone: 303-724-3591
Fax: 303-724-2637
E-mail: Sheldon.Steinhauser@cufund.org
Last updated: 6/09/09