Cuny, Garey Receive Buckley and Boblitt Endowed Professorship Appointments 

Sept. 26 — University of Houston College of Pharmacy faculty members Gregory D. Cuny, Ph.D., and Kevin W. Garey, Pharm.D., M.S., FASHP, FIDSA, FCCP, have been appointed Joseph P. & Shirley Shipman Buckley Endowed Professor and Robert L. Boblitt Sr. Endowed Professor, respectively.

One of two endowed professorships established at the college from a bequest from the Buckley estate, the late Joseph Buckley served as dean of the college from 1973 to 1987 and provided pivotal leadership in the college's immersion in funded research programs. The Boblitt professorship – the college's first of now nine such endowments – was created by Robert Boblitt Jr. in memory of his father who served in various faculty and administrative roles at the college from 1953 to 1987, including crisscrossing the state recruiting students. Boblitt also is fondly remembered by former students for his ability to simultaneously write formulas with one hand while erasing previous steps with the other hand.

Cuny earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Mass. A UHCOP faculty member since 2012, Cuny serves as assistant chair of the college's Department of Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences and recently was promoted to full professor of medicinal chemistry.

Cuny's research interests include designing and optimizing in vivo pharmacology probes to elucidate novel therapeutic strategies for treating diseases. For example, his group has been designing inhibitors to prevent deadly and debilitating infections by the protozoa Cryptosporidium. His group has also had a long standing interest in developing probes that inhibit receptor-interacting protein kinases for the treatment of degenerative conditions. Cuny's work has been supported by multiple agencies under the National Institutes of Health.

Cuny has authored or coauthored more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In 2021, he was recognized as a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors as inventor/co-inventor on more than 50 U.S. patents.

Garey holds a Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree from State University of New York at Buffalo in Buffalo, N.Y., and an M.S. in biometry from the University of Texas School of Public Health. A UHCOP faculty member since 2001, Garey has served as chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice and Translational Research (formerly Clinical Sciences and Administration) since 2007.

Garey is recognized as an expert in infectious diseases pharmacotherapy, particularly in the area of the recurrent infections caused by the bacteria Clostridioides difficile. He has published more than 200 research papers in peer-reviewed journals and several book chapters. Garey has led or collaborated on research grant projects and pre-clinical/clinical trials funded by such entities as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health as well as pharmaceutical industry companies, such as Abbott, AstraZeneca and Merck.

He is a founding member of the Center for Antimicrobial Stewardship and Epidemiology at CHI St. Luke's Health-Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center, which was recognized with a Best Practices Award by ASHP, which also has bestowed fellow status on Garey. He also co-founded the college's three-year Infectious Diseases Pharmacotherapy Fellowship with Baylor St. Luke's as well as The Houston Program, a two-year collaborative M.S. degree and residency in Health System Pharmacy Administration and Leadership program with seven fellow Texas Medical Center institutions.

Garey is a two-time recipient of both the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists' Impact Paper in Infectious Diseases Pharmacotherapy Award and the Top 10 Paper in Mycology Award from the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacy (ASHP) Drug Therapy Research Award.

In October, Garey will be presented with the Russell R. Miller Award for contributions to literature in clinical pharmacy from the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP), which previously bestowed fellow status on him. Garey also has earned fellow status from the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).