Texas Medical Center Honors Chow

Pharmaceutics Professor, Inventor Among 2017 TMC Women's History Project Honorees

UH College of Pharmacy Pharmaceutics Professor Diana S-L. Chow, Ph.D., FNAI, was recognized as a 2017 Texas Medical Center Women's History Project honoree April 20 during the Greater Houston Women's Chamber of Commerce 

Launched in 2013, the Texas Medical Center Women’s History Project (TMC-WHP) recognizes the significant contributions made by women to the development of the TMC. The project’s goal is to preserve these women’s oral history interviews and materials within the TMC Library’s Archives, and to make them available to researchers and institutions of the TMC as well as the public at large.

Each year, five prominent women are chosen across the institutions, their oral histories recorded for posterity and transcribed for preservation within the archives of the TMC Library. Joining Chow as a 2017 TMC-WHP honoree are Millicent “Millie” Goldschmidt, Ph.D., UTHealth; Margaret McNeese, M.D., UTHealth; Kathryn Peek, Ph.D., UTHealth and MD Anderson Cancer Center; Melinda Perrin, Memorial Hermann Health System, previous Board Chair.

A UHCOP faculty member since 1981, Chow received her Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, M.S. from Ohio State University and B.S. National Taiwan University. She has authored or contributed on nearly 200 national and international journal articles, abstracts and presentations. She has been recognized as Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors as well as a recipient of the Houston Intellectual Property Law Association's "Inventor of the Year Award" along with her co-inventors. 

Chow was recognized for her translational research spanning more than 30 years and resulting in more than 10 U.S. and international patents, including as co-inventor of IV Busulfex® (busulfan), an intravenous conditioning agent for leukemia and other cancer patients undergoing blood, bone marrow or stem cell transplantation.

Her current projects include studies of medications used aboard the International Space Station, new therapeutics for acute spinal cord injuries, and lung and liver organ-specific nanoformulations for novel oral and parenteral anticancer agents based on an existing antiparasitic medication. In addition to her faculty position, Chow serves as director of the UH Institute for Drug Education and Research. 

The audio file and transcript of Chow's TMC-WHP interview are available on the TMCWHP website.