On May 6, UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey Gold and Maode Lai, president of China Pharmaceutical University, met and signed a Memorandum of Understanding. This memorandum creates a base on which to build future research collaborations and student exchange between UNMC and China Pharmaceutical University.
David Oupicky, PhD, professor of Pharmaceutical Science, has firsthand experience with China Pharmaceutical University. He has had visiting scholars and students in his lab from CPU. Furthermore, in 2015 he received the Changjiang Scholar (Yangtze River Scholar) award to work at CPU. "This agreement will open up a number of wonderful possibilities for faculty and students at both universities that will lead to new advances in drug discovery and delivery. For UNMC in particular, China is the leading place in the areas of nanomedicine and polymer science for pharmaceutical sciences, so obviously it makes a lot of sense for us to be there collaborating with Chinese scientists and trying to recruit Chinese students and postdocs," he says.
Ram Mahato, PhD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UNMC, received his Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from CPU. He said, "I believe a strong relationship between CPU and UNMC will benefit UNMC students and faculty. We have several graduate students and a couple of visiting scientists from CPU." He hopes that the relationship will expand in the future. "We should encourage graduate students from CPU to spend a couple of years at UNMC under a joint graduate program," he said.
The new relationship will increase student exchange possibilities for College of Pharmacy students. There are currently a number of options in a variety of locations in China available to students from the Colleges of Medicine and Nursing. Opportunities for College of Pharmacy students to study abroad in China are relatively new, having begun in 2013.
CPU is the oldest pharmaceutical university in China, and it has the highest ranked pharmacy program in China. CPU is in Nanjing, one of China’s historical capital cities that is roughly 550 miles south of Beijing.
New Relationship with China Pharmaceutical University Expands Opportunities
Maode Lai, president of China Pharmaceutical University, with Chancellor Gold. In the background are Haiping Hao, Professor and Dean of the College of Pharmacy at CPU, Dele Davies, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, and Le Kang, Professor and President of the Beijing Institute of Life Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences.