AAPS Open

• The AAPS Journal
• AAPS PharmSciTech
• Pharmaceutical Research
• BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology
• BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

If your manuscript has been declined, and you are planning to submit your article to another of the four AAPS journals (AAPS Open, The AAPS Journal, AAPSPharmSciTech, or Pharmaceutical Research), we can help make the peer review process faster and smoother by extending the use of previous peer reviewer comments! Portable Peer Review, an opt-into service available for any author of these journals, allows us to share, between the portfolio, previous peer review comments and reviewer names, subject to approval of all parties. This can help speed up the assessment process, should the editor choose to make a decision on the basis of the comments and revision. Interested?  Email us with the name of the journal to which you are going to submit. Note: Portable peer review is opt-in only, available at the authors’ preference, and the reviewer identities and comments will only be shared between offices, not to the author.

Drug Development Initiatives for Global Health
Edited by Paddy Shivanand and Mehran Yazdanian

Arlington, VA—AAPS is pleased to announce Yongchao Su, Ph.D., has assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief of AAPS Open, the first open access publication dedicated to the pharmaceutical sciences. 

He will manage peer review of manuscripts under consideration by the journal, collaborate with the publisher and AAPS to select Associate Editors and the Editorial Board, and commission submissions in areas of interest and scope. In addition, he will work on journal development with the goal of furthering the journal’s impact and reach, and advancing the field of drug discovery, development, and regulation.

"I'm excited to bring my interdisciplinary expertise to the role of Editor-in-Chief of AAPS Open," said Dr. Su. "As AAPS' flagship open access publication, this peer-reviewed journal is a pivotal source of credible pharmaceutical science, offering excellent visibility and accessibility."

"AAPS Open provides the pharmaceutical communities access to new and innovative scientific thinking," said Gopi Shankar, Ph.D., M.B.A., FAAPS, the 2024 AAPS President. "Dr. Su's background, which bridges academia and industrial sciences, along with his expertise in elucidating the molecular mechanisms of drug delivery and stability for product development, will be an invaluable asset in his role as Editor-in-Chief."

Dr. Su is a Senior Principal Scientist in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Clinical Supply at Merck & Co, Inc. He also serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin, University of Connecticut, and Purdue University. He has received academic training in structural biophysics and brings nearly 10 years of industrial experience, spanning discovery, formulation, and analytical functions. As a researcher, he has published more than 120 peer-reviewed articles and has been involved with the editorial advisory boards of Pharmaceutical Research, Molecular Pharmaceutics, and the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. In addition, Dr. Su served as an editor for the protein section of Amino Acids.

Currently, he serves on the Physical Analysis Expert Committee of the United States Pharmacopeia. Most recently, he served as Chair of the AAPS Career Development Committee. 

Xiuling Lu, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
School of Pharmacy, University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT 06269, United States
Email: xiuling.lu@uconn.edu

Xiuling Lu, Professor at the University of Connecticut, Associate Director of Center for Pharmaceutical Processing Research, Past Chair of the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology & Education, received her Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She was appointed as a Research Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2008 to 2011 prior to joining the School of Pharmacy at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Lu’s research is focused on innovative nanotechnologies that target difficult-to-treat cancers, optimization and evaluation of drug formulations and pharmaceutical processing, as well as the use of versatile imaging tools to improve pharmaceutical product quality. Her research has been supported by NIH, American Cancer Society, NSF, FDA, industry etc. Dr. Lu has published more than 85 peer-reviewed publications in high impact journals. The innovative research has resulted in 4 issued US patents and 4 pending patent applications. One of the patents was licensed to a startup pharmaceutical company. Dr. Lu is an Editor of AAPS Open, and also serving on the editorial board of AAPS PharmSciTech, Pharmaceutical Research, International Journal of Pharmaceutics, and Drug Delivery and Translational Research. Dr. Lu received American Association of University Professors-UConn Excellence in Research and Creativity: Early Career Award in 2016 and Dean Robert L. McCarthy Faculty Service Award in 2019 as well as 2023 Research Advising Award. Dr. Lu was elected as the American Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences (AAPS) Fellow in 2023. 

Mo Maniruzzaman, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Department of Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery
School of Pharmacy, the University of Mississippi
University, MI 38677, United States
Email: mmaniruz@olemiss.edu

Dr Mo Maniruzzaman is the Chair and Professor of Pharmaceutics & Drug Delivery, and Research Professor in the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (RIPS) at the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy and leads the newly established Pharmaceutical Engineering and 3D Printing (PharmE3D) Lab there. Prior to this, he was the Bauerle Centennial Professorship Fellow and Assistant Professor of Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery at The University of Texas at Austin, College of Pharmacy (2019-2023), Lecturer in Pharmaceutics/Drug Delivery (2017-2019) and a Research Fellow at the University of Sussex (2016-2017). He received his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Greenwich, UK with no corrections (000422158 RDC/12/M-3/14.8) and with two accompanying awards including the Vice Chancellor’s Award in 2013 for the outstanding performance. Mo is the youngest person at the age of 34 to become the Chair and Full Professor at any R1 university and a nationally ranked School of Pharmacy in the USA. He is also the youngest PhD holder (PhD awarded at the age of 23) in the United Kingdom from any overseas community. The Maniruzzaman Lab has received more than 25 prestigious awards for the outstanding academic/scholarly work including International Collaboration Grant (ICG) 2024, Texas Health Catalyst (THC) Award 2023, the 2021 NIPTE Rising Star Scholarship Award, Pharmacy Educator of the Year Award 2023, MDPI Pharmaceutics Best Paper Award, and Research4Impact 2020 to name a few. 

He has extensive research experience in additive manufacturing (e.g., 3D printing/bioprinting), advanced drug delivery, and recently medical robotics and space medicines. This is reflected by authorship of more than 94 published papers (mostly Q1 journals), 25 issued patents and patent applications, 3 books, 15 book chapters, and more than 50 conference presentations. His lab has invented various proprietary technologies such as DosePlus, CoM3D, CoMIDEx, SPEED, SMART, MAGiC, and MeET some of which have already been licensed to multiple pharmaceutical companies such as CoM3D Limited, DosePlus Therapeutics Inc. Also, his lab research has led to an FDA registered commercial product recently i.e., ChitoTruss (Septum Solutions LLC) which are currently being used in clinical settings. He is an Editor of AAPS Open and Associate Editor of Heliyon - Pharmaceutical Science, Pharmacoloy and Toxicology section (IF 4) and serves on the Editorial Board of multiple international journals including AAPS PharmSciTech. He is a member of the AAPS Nanotechnology Community Leadership as well as AAPS Editorial Content Committee (ECC). Dr Maniruzzaman has secured multiple federal (NIH/FDA, NASA, USAID, HRSA) and non-federal (foundation, industry) grants. 

AAPS Open is an official journal of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists.