Chair of Pharmacology and Toxicology

Role and Responsibilities

Reporting to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Dean of the College of Medicine, the next Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology will ensure the growth and excellence of its educational and scientific programs, balancing both areas of priority for the Department. The Chair will be expected to maintain and expand research areas, garner support internally and externally to enhance resources, promote research partnerships within UAMS’s various institutes and clinical partners, and recruit and retain outstanding faculty. The successful Chair will have an opportunity to set and execute a strategic vision that will chart the course for this vitally important Department for years to come. For a visionary and collaborative leader, this is an exciting time to join UAMS, as it is immersed in its bold 10-year Vision 2029 strategic plan and continues to expand its impact across the state and region.

In this next Chair, the College seeks an exceptional scientist with the intellectual vision to develop and expand research within the Department. The successful Chair will possess significant leadership and communication skills, bring a record of outstanding science, and convey an understanding and commitment to the education mission. The Chair will provide effective and creative management to leverage current strengths and to build relationships across UAMS and with partners including Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System. The incumbent will continue to foster the positive culture of collaboration, partnership, and support that is fundamental to UAMS and the Department.

The Chair will oversee all faculty and administrative staff who sustain the Department’s educational, research, and operational efforts. As administrative head of the Department, the Chair will oversee the budget and compliance with grant, legislative, and institutional guidelines. The Chair will collaborate closely with other clinical, research, and educational leaders to spearhead interdisciplinary teams and lead cutting-edge projects, fully leveraging the tremendous collaboration opportunities that exist across UAMS. The Chair will recruit and support principal investigators and other faculty within the Department in efforts to secure NIH and other grant funding to support research priorities. Moreover, the Chair will ensure the delivery of excellent education and research training to medical, graduate students and residents.

About the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology

The Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the College of Medicine at UAMS in Little Rock, AR, includes 20 faculty engaged in research, education, and institutional service. Most faculty serve on national study sections and review groups and editorial boards of scientific journals. The vibrant environment also includes 40 administrative and research staff, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students. Faculty interact across campus with researchers from other College of Medicine departments and with colleagues in the College of Pharmacy and College of Public Health. The department also is home to a NIGMS-funded T32 training grant in Systems Pharmacology and Toxicology (T-SPaT) that emphasizes using vertically integrated approaches for preclinical drug testing and toxicological evaluation of environmental and drug effects.  Department shared resources include a standard equipment core, the campus DNA Damage and Toxicology Core, and a Cardiovascular Phenotyping Core that are led by faculty experts.

The major areas of research in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology include cardiovascular and renal pharmacology, substance abuse, and cancer/toxicology. Most laboratories are funded by at least one federal agency. The sources for extramural funding for department laboratories include the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, Department of Justice, US Department of Agriculture, American Heart Association, and other nonprofit and industry funding sources. Several faculty members also hold Merit Awards from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and the Central Arkansas Veterans Health System hospital and research facilities are adjacent to the UAMS campus as an additional research resource.  The education of undergraduate students is supported by a grant from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET).

The Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology provides diverse training opportunities for Ph.D., M.D., and M.D./Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows. It is home to the Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics training track of the UAMS Graduate School and actively recruits and trains students that receive a doctorate degree in interdisciplinary biomedical sciences. Trainees are encouraged to prepare for leadership roles in academics, industry, and government. In addition to more traditional coursework, trainees may receive a 12-credit certificate in regulatory science to gain a broader understanding of the regulatory framework of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, clinical trials design, and drug safety assessment.  Faculty also teach in the medical school curriculum and contribute to education in the College of Pharmacy. Dissertation committees are designed to be interdisciplinary and include faculty advisors from nonclinical and clinical departments.

The Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology also has strong ties to the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute, and the UAMS Translational Research Institute that offer faculty and trainees additional training and learning opportunities.  Faculty have access to a strong network of institutional cores supported by the College of Medicine and the campus that enhance research capabilities and competitiveness. Entrepreneurial activities are encouraged and UAMS’ technology transfer office, BioVentures, LLC offers professional training and support to provide researchers with opportunities to leverage their discoveries into products to improve health outcomes.

About the College of Medicine

The College of Medicine is comprised of 700 medical students (on two campuses, in Little Rock and Fayetteville in Northwest Arkansas), 715 medical residents and fellows, and more than 1,600 faculty. The College plays an enormous role in educating the state’s physician workforce and produces half of the state’s practicing physicians (with an even higher percentage of physicians in rural areas). The College has educated and trained more than 11,000 physicians since 1879.

As part of the state’s only health sciences university and the statewide UAMS Health clinical enterprise, the College prepares clinicians and scientists to contribute broadly to research, education, and patient care. Faculty physicians provide highly specialized, patient- and family-centered care at UAMS Medical Center’s hospital, clinics, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System, and UAMS regional centers throughout the state. Many of its basic sciences faculty members also hold appointments in the UAMS Graduate School. The College is home to the Arkansas Biosciences Institute and faculty members are integral in leading the efforts of the NIH-funded UAMS Translational Research Institute. The College has enjoyed terrific success in developing high quality education programs and the size and scope of the research enterprise has increased dramatically in recent years.

The College enjoys support from a range of partners in carrying out its service mission, including close cooperation with Arkansas Children’s Hospital to provide high level care to children and young adults, integrate pediatric research activities, and advance leading pediatric clinical care and academic programs. College faculty serve at Arkansas Children’s and represent all sub-specialties at the Hospital in support of both institutions’ national recognition, ability to recruit and retain top faculty and staff, and improved operating performance. Beyond pediatrics, partnerships exist with the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System and Baptist Health.

UAMS’s Integrated Clinical Enterprise promotes inter-professional collaboration and supports the development of clinical excellence by organizing providers into clinical service lines. These lines, determined by patient need, are designed to provide the highest levels of care and quality.

Clinical Service Lines

• Behavioral Health
• Cancer
• Cardiovascular
• Integrated Medicine
• Musculoskeletal
• Neurosciences
• Primary Care & Population Health
• Surgical Specialties
• Transplant
• Women & Infants

Clinical Departments

• Anesthesiology
• Dermatology
• Geriatrics
• Emergency Medicine
• Family & Preventive Medicine
• Internal Medicine
• Medical Humanities and Bioethics
• Neurology
• Neurosurgery
• Obstetrics and Gynecology
• Ophthalmology
• Orthopedic Surgery and Rehabilitation
• Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery
• Pathology
• Pediatrics
• Psychiatry
• Radiation Oncology
• Radiology
• Surgery
• Urology

Basic Science Departments 

• Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
• Biomedical Informatics
• Biostatistics
• Microbiology and Immunology
• Neuroscience
• Pharmacology and Toxicology
• Physiology and Cell Biology

Education

The College of Medicine features a student-centered, active-learning curriculum intended to foster critical thinking. Interprofessional education helps future physicians learn to work in highly effective, multi-disciplinary teams for improved patient care. Medical students are organized in seven academic houses that provide academic and career advising and support, peer mentoring, and a greater sense of community for students.

On the growing regional campus, UAMS Northwest, 18 juniors and 20 seniors are completing clinical rotations with faculty, including local practicing physicians. An accelerated, three-year M.D. degree program with special emphasis on primary care launched at UAMS Northwest in 2021-2022, bringing freshmen medical students to the Fayetteville campus for the first time.

The college sponsors 69 ACGME-accredited residency and fellowship programs which provides training for approximately 700 residents and fellows. UAMS Regional Programs have an additional 10 ACGME accredited programs in family medicine, internal medicine and a sports medicine fellowship. The Baptist Health-UAMS Medical Education Program offers family medicine, internal medicine, psychiatry, and transitional-year residency programs, with 104 total residents training in 2023-2024. In July 2023, the UAMS-Washington Regional Internal Medicine Residency Program welcomed its first residency class. UAMS continues to help hospitals across Arkansas as they establish and maintain much-needed residency programs to build Arkansas’ physician workforce.

The Medical Scholars in Public Health post-baccalaureate program, a partnership of the UAMS Colleges of Medicine, Public Health, and Pharmacy, welcomed its first 15 students in 2021. Students work toward a master’s in public health while preparing for future application and admission to medical school.

Research

Through its Office of Research, the College of Medicine (COM) supports clinical and basic science research, provides leadership in expanding the college’s research and creative activities, aligns the COM research agenda with federal agencies and foundations, fosters interdisciplinary research programs and collaborations, and works with the UAMS Development Office to further College of Medicine research and augment funding.

The COM supports a wide range of shared resources and core facilities designed to advance basic, clinical, and translational research. Core facilities provide recharge-based services, which allow investigators access to technologies and services not available in their own laboratories.

Shared Resources and Core Facilities

• Bioinformatics
• Bone Biomechanics, Histology, and Imaging
• Brain Imaging and Research Center
• Digital Microscopy
• DNA and Next Generation Sequencing Core Facility
• DNA Damage and Toxicology
• Experimental Pathology
• Flow Cytometry
• Genetic Models
• Genomics
• Proteomics

Additional research cores and services are available at the institutional level, including Division of Laboratory Animal Medicine, Experimental Radiation Core, Ultrasound Core, and a Bio dosimetry Diagnostic Core. The Arkansas Children’s Research Institute supports Biostatics, Proteogenomics, and Research Informatics cores, along with affiliated resources.

The College also houses several research centers dedicated to investigating and applying advanced techniques and materials to improve current medical diagnosis and treatment options, including the IDeA National Resource for Quantitative Proteomics, Center for Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Inflammatory Responses, Center for Molecular Interactions in Cancer, and the Center for Musculoskeletal Disease Research.

The UAMS Translational Research Institute, supported by a Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) from the National Institutes of Health, accelerates research that improves health and health care. UAMS is an institutional member and administrative home of the Arkansas Biosciences Institute.

Additional information about the College is available at https://medicine.uams.edu/.

About UAMS

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) is the state’s only academic health sciences center, comprised of five health professions colleges (Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions, and Public Health), a graduate school, six institutes, eight Regional Centers (six of which include family medicine practices and residency programs), and a comprehensive Medical Center. Its College of Medicine has held a unique and vital role in Arkansas for over 130 years. UAMS is the largest public employer in Arkansas, with more than 11,000 employees. UAMS and its clinical affiliates, Arkansas Children’s and the VA Medical Center, are an economic engine for the state, with an annual economic impact of $3.92 billion. Located centrally within the state, UAMS’s Little Rock campus is a tertiary referral center and the only Level 1 adult Trauma Center and Comprehensive Stroke Center for Arkansas.

UAMS has several prominent research centers, including the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Translational Research Institute, the Stephens Spine and Neurosciences Institute, and the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging. The UAMS strategic plan Vision 2029 outlines the institution’s commitment to growth in research. The UAMS Core Concepts of Patient and Family Centered Care consists of Dignity & Respect, Information Sharing, Participation, and Collaboration. These core concepts allow for an approach to health care that shapes policies, programs, facility design, and day-to-day staff interactions. It leads to better health outcomes and wiser allocation of resources, and more excellent patient and family satisfaction. 

UAMS is in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Little Rock – North Little Rock communities, consisting of approximately 750,000 people, offer a high quality of life with a modest cost of living, excellent schools, and recreational opportunities.

UAMS has a unique combination of education, research, and clinical programs that encourages and supports teamwork and diversity.  We champion being a collaborative healthcare organization, focused on improving the health, healthcare, and well-being of Arkansans.

For full consideration, applications should include the following documents:

• A curriculum vitae

• A letter of interest providing a concise summary of qualifications for the position

Applications can be submitted online.

All inquiries and nominations should be submitted to Shaun McWeeney via email at smcweeney@uams.edu.

Written recommendations, inquiries, and applications (including emails) may be subject to disclosure under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

This position is subject to a pre-employment criminal background check. A criminal conviction or arrest pending adjudication alone shall not disqualify an applicant except as provided by law. Any criminal history will be evaluated in relationship to job responsibilities and business necessity. The information obtained in these reports will be used in a confidential, non-discriminatory manner consistent with state and federal law.

UAMS is an inclusive Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer of individuals with disabilities and protected veterans and is committed to excellence. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by telephone at (501) 686-6432 and let us know the nature of your request. We will only respond to messages left that involve a request for a reasonable accommodation in the application process. We will accommodate the needs of any qualified candidate who requests a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).