July 15, 2024

By: Toni Shears

 

Her year as one of the College of Pharmacy’s inaugural Postdoctoral Collegiate Fellows still has a few months to go, but Mercy Okezue, Ph.D., has already expanded her research into new areas and mastered skills in microbiology and molecular biology, and enriched her network of scientific collaborators and contacts. 

 

Best of all, she fulfilled one of the key aims of the Postdoctoral Collegiate Fellows Program (PCFP): to launch her career to a tenure-track faculty member, and she has done just that. Dr. Okezue has accepted a position with Michigan State University (MSU) as an Assistant Professor in the School of Packaging.

 

Her research at MSU will focus on determining risks and providing mitigation strategies for pharmaceutical and medical product packaging that degrades a product’s shelf life. She will also continue her research on improving delivery of bedaquiline, used to treat multidrug resistant tuberculosis. She has synthesized and characterized five new bedaquiline salts and is working to develop solid nanoparticles to further improve the drug’s solubility. At MSU, she will teach courses in medical packaging and instruments of analysis. She’ll also develop a course covering the regulation of medical packaging.  

 

“One goal of the PCFP program is to launch future faculty. The fact that Mercy has done this after only a year of her post-doc speaks to her intellect and strong skill set,” says Regina McClinton, Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion who oversees the postdoc pathway program. 

 

A Unique and Growing Skill Set

Dr. Okezue’s successful postdoc and her promising future as a new faculty member builds on her rare combination of skills. She has a long career in regulatory science, working in quality assurance for 15 years with Nigeria’s National Agency for Food & Drug Administration and Control. She came to the United States in 2014 to complete her Master’s and PhD in biotechnology innovation and regulatory sciences at Purdue University. Along the way, she gained extensive experience in solid-state characterization, the development of new salt formulations to enhance oral drug bioavailability and pharmacy education.

 

All this experience gave her a solid footing to branch out into new lines of research. “Based upon her background, I felt comfortable with her taking charge of a project that was an entirely new area for her and for the lab,” says Ashlee Brunaugh, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Dr. Okezue’s faculty mentor. This project, a collaboration with Colin Greineder’s lab in Pharmacology, involved developing an antibody-based delivery system to enhance lung targeting of drugs,” Brunaugh explained. 

 

“Mercy was an extremely quick learner and went above and beyond to generate key data for this project. In parallel to this project, Mercy also worked in my lab on testing synergistic small molecule antibiotic combinations against mycobacterium abscessus.”

 

“My current research is completely different than what I worked on in the past. The biggest benefit of my postdoc experience at the College is the new skill sets I acquired,” Dr. Okezue says. “My fellowship has complemented my previous skills and made me a more well-rounded researcher.”

 

Careerwise, she continues, “I was amazed at the diversity in research within the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the College and the level of collaboration we have with faculty from other departments. Some of the new skills I acquired were through working on projects where Ashlee was collaborating with faculty within and outside of the University.”

 

A Postdoc that Benefits All

“The postdoc is a win-win, with benefits for fellows, the College, and science itself. PCFP is designed to bolster the pipeline of researchers into STEM tenure-track faculty positions and the diversity of research topics addressed. Fellows are selected based on the potential of their work to impact underrepresented groups in society,” according to McClinton. 

 

To prepare postdocs for tenure-track roles, the program includes mentoring and opportunities to support fellows’ professional growth and development. For instance, Dr. Brunaugh made sure Dr. Okezue gained new technical skills and connections to collaborators to enhance her ability to compete for research funding in the future. 

 

“The PCFP provided the opportunity for me to train someone that has a ton of potential and the necessary “grit” to succeed in academia, but who hadn’t necessarily had the opportunity to obtain experience in research areas typically funded by the NIH or NSF,” Brunaugh noted. “I think sometimes it can be risky for faculty to hire postdocs that don't already have the skills required for a particular project, and this in turn can limit the diversity of our academic pipeline. The PCFP reduces this risk.”

 

The lab saw lasting benefits as well, Dr. Brunaugh notes. “As a new investigator, Mercy's background was invaluable. She helped implement systems and processes in my lab, which we will continue to use after she departs. Her knowledge and experience were very helpful in improving the rigor and reproducibility of our research.”

 

“My hope is that in her future academic career, Mercy can combine her expanded technical skills with her unique regulatory background to enhance quality and reduce costs associated with biologic therapies and streamline antibiotic susceptibility testing,” Brunaugh adds.

“I think MSU is very fortunate to have Mercy joining their faculty, and I am pleased that she decided to stay within the Michigan academic ecosystem. She understands both regulatory drug product requirements and basic science, which will position her well for translational funding opportunities, such as those offered by the FDA. My hope is that we can continue to collaborate on future research projects. I look forward to seeing her career progression!”