ANN ARBOR—A former professor of pharmaceutical chemistry who now is leading research and development efforts in the pharmaceutical industry has been named dean of the College of Pharmacy at the University of Michigan.

The appointment of James Dalton to a five-year term beginning Sept. 1 was approved today by the U-M Board of Regents.

Dalton is chief scientific officer and vice president of preclinical research and development at GTx Inc., a biopharmaceutical company based in Memphis, Tenn. Prior to his full-time commitment to GTx, Dalton was professor and chair of the Division of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Ohio State University.

Pollack said she was excited about Dalton’s ability to bring a “unique background in industry and the academy” at a time when the College of Pharmacy is poised to address the important issues of research funding, space constraints and the changing landscape of pharmacy practice.

“I am honored to become the next dean of U-M’s College of Pharmacy,” Dalton said. “I look forward to working with the highly regarded faculty, staff and students there to take the college to new heights.”

Dalton earned a Bachelor of Science in pharmacy from the University of Cincinnati and a doctorate in pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry from Ohio State. He was a staff pharmacist at Kettering Medical Center in Kettering, Ohio, and had a post-doctoral fellowship in the Division of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at OSU before starting his academic career.

Following his fellowship, he joined the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Tennessee as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor. He then joined the Ohio State College of Pharmacy faculty as an associate professor. He served as interim chair of the Division of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry before being named chair of the division and being promoted to professor.

Among Dalton’s many research and administrative responsibilities at GTx are leadership and direct supervision of all aspects of drug discovery and preclinical and product development, including drug discovery, medicinal chemistry, drug metabolism, analytical sciences, safety and toxicology assessment, pre-formulation and product development teams. He also plays a leadership role in all clinical studies, serves as the scientific representative during interactions with the Food and Drug Administration and European regulatory authorities, leads the intellectual property team, and has served as senior scientific liaison to pharmaceutical industry partners of GTx.

His interdisciplinary and translational research has focused on the molecular and preclinical pharmacology of selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) and novel drugs in the treatment of cancer. Dalton has published more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific publications in these areas. SARMs were first discovered in Dalton’s research laboratories and he is co-inventor on hundreds of SARM patents.