Former Members

Aws Ghanem Received his Master’s Degree (M.D.) in Medicine form University of Jordan School of Medicine, Jordan. During his medical education, he participated in numerous research projects. One of the projects he worked on was at King Hussein Cancer center to examine the effects of multiple drugs on cancer cells. Currently, he is a part of the Pai lab, where he is responsible of clinical sample collection for the Preoperative Prophylactic Antibiotics studies under the supervision of Dr. Pai. In addition, he joined the University of Michigan (UofM) college of Pharmacy as Graduate Student Instructor. He cooperates with the faculty and students to work on fourth-year seminars’ projects.

Believing in the importance of evidence-based medicine, he is enthusiastic to proceed his research studies, while also working on his residency in Internal Medicine. He is always eager to further enrich his medical knowledge in order to better serve the community by promoting public health and individual’s well-being. Outside of work, he enjoys all forms of outdoor activities including Tennis, soccer, hiking and camping.

Tamara Al Naimi is currently a Clinical Research Coordinator Hlth at MM Metabolic, Endo & Diabetes Department/ University of Michigan Health System. I received my bachelor’s degree in general medicine and surgery (MBChB) from College of Medicine, University of Diyala, Iraq. In my senior year, I have conducted a research for Warfare Penetrating Trauma in Baqubah Teaching Hospital for the year 2008 and worked in two other histological research studies for abdominal masses in Pediatric age group and thyroid gland masses to study malignancy. I started my residency program in Iraq and after 5 months I moved to the United State of America, here I started to work as a Pharmacy Technician in Walgreens and received my CPhT Certification. I also have been a research assistant in Eastern Michigan University with Dr. James D. Hoeschele. We synthesized Cis-platin (anti-tumor drug), working to optimize the Dhara method, and conducting studies for neurotoxicity & Ototoxicity through our team in Italy.

I have been volunteering in University of Michigan Health System since January 2017 in several departments, currently I volunteer in the Emergency Department. I also volunteered in an Urgent Care Unit in Ann Arbor. I worked with Dr. Pai as a Research Assistant on a new study for Preoperative Prophylactic Antibiotics. Outside of work & Volunteer, I love spending a lot of time with Soccer and I enjoy trying new food and discovering new places in Michigan.

Dr. Ernane Souza is currently a tenure track Assistant Professor at Palm Beach University, Miami, Florida. Dr. Souza is both a clinical pharmacist and pharmaceutical scientist. Prior to receiving his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Iowa, he earned a combined professional pharmacy degree from Brazil and Spain. Besides having previous experience as a pharmacist, Dr. Souza recently acquired additional clinical pharmacy training at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. His research interests include drug discovery, development, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, dose optimization and refinement through translational clinical pharmacology. While completing his graduate studies, Dr. Souza discovered a novel class of inhibitors of thrombin as potentially new anticoagulants. His thesis is under publication embargo pending a patent application. His current research is focused on characterizing the pharmacokinetics and toxicological effects of anti-infective agents in order to promote precision dosing in special populations, such as patients with cystic fibrosis and renal dysfunction. He also provides support for a variety of interdisciplinary, translational research projects, and serves as an adjunct instructor in Clinical Pharmacy. Outside of work, he likes to spend time with his wife traveling, visiting national parks, hiking, and appreciating good food. He is not a fan of samba and is unfamiliar with football.

Dr. Ryan Crass  is currently a pharmacometrician with the Ann Arbor Pharmacometrics Group (A2PG). In this role, he works with sponsors of investigational drugs to develop models quantifying drug pharmacokinetics and linking exposure to efficacy and safety in patients across the clinical program. These model-based drug development activities also include interpolation and extrapolation through simulation-based analyses to dosing regimens and specific populations (e.g., pediatrics) not evaluated in clinical trials. Dr. Crass completed his Clinical Pharmacy Translational Sciences Fellowship in the Pai lab from 2017-2019 with an emphasis on optimizing the dosing of antimicrobials eliminated by the kidney. His first author paper entitled "Renal Dosing of Antibiotics: Are We Jumping the Gun?", co-authored with University of Michigan faculty Drs. Amit Pai and Bruce Mueller, was named Pharmacotherapy Paper of the Year by the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists in 2019.

Matt Lichty  worked in the Pai lab as a programmer analyst, developing R scripts to automate data extraction and transformation from clinical database records, and writing Batch scripts to help automate the pmetrics modeling and simulation processes. He also worked on data visualizations, pre-clinical study data analysis, and website updates. Matt moved to Wisconsin where he worked for a non-profit in Madison analyzing agriculture sustainability practice and pesticide toxicity data, and now lives in the beautiful driftless region in the small town of Viroqua.