Background
Barbara Slusher, Ph.D., MAS, is Professor of Neurology (primary), Medicine, Psychiatry, and Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Director of Johns Hopkins Drug Discovery
Dr. Slusher received her undergraduate degree from Dickinson College where she graduated valedictorian, majoring in Chemistry. She received her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine while simultaneously earning her Master's degree in Administrative Science from the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business (formerly the Hopkins' School of Continuing Studies).
Before joining Johns Hopkins in 2010, Dr. Slusher spent 18 years in the pharmaceutical industry, including several years at the level of Senior Vice President of Research and Translational Development. She has extensive experience in drug discovery through early clinical development and was involved in the successful development, launch and/or post marketing support of several branded medicines including Quetiapine (Seroquel TM) for schizophrenia, Palonosetron (Aloxi TM) for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, Azacytodine (Dacogen TM) for myelodysplastic syndrome, and Fospropofol (Lucedra TM) for monitored anesthesia care (MAC) sedation.
At Johns Hopkins, she leads the largest integrated drug discovery program on campus, responsible for translating basic science discoveries at Hopkins into novel small molecule therapeutics. Her veteran drug discovery team consists of medicinal chemists, assay developers, pharmacologists, toxicologists, and pharmacokinetic/drug metabolism experts, with an average of 15 years Pharma R&D drug discovery experience.
She has also published over 175 scientific articles and is the inventor on 75 issued patents and applications. She co-founded a new biotechnology company in Baltimore called Cerecor and is leading the first-ever International Consortium of over 130 Academic Drug Discovery Centers with over 1500 members in an effort to coordinate and enhance university-led drug discovery efforts.
Barbara Slusher can be reached via email at bslusher@jhmi.edu.