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Ala F Nassar, PhD

Senior Research Scientist

Biography

Ala F. Nassar, PhD, is a faculty member at Yale University. He has over 25 years of experience in Drug Metabolism and Preclinical Drug Development with leadership roles in both big pharma, smaller biotech firms and academics (UCONN, Brandeis and Yale). He has published more than 100 articles and chapters and holds patents in the fields of drug metabolism and bioanalytical chemistry. He leads and executes ADME-Tox experiments supporting grant projects. He was the head of the drug metabolism and bioanalytical department at Vion Pharmaceuticals, where his studies of the ADME-Tox properties of Laromustine led to a fuller, more accurate and detailed understanding of the human toxicities of the drug. He was an Ass. Professor of chemistry department and the director of Mass Spectrometry Facility at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA before coming to Yale. He has served on numerous editorial boards and is the editor of the previous edition of Drug Metabolism Handbook: Concepts and Applications and Biotransformation and Metabolite Elucidation of Xenobiotics: Characterization and Identification. Co-editor of Pharmaceutical Sciences Encyclopedia: Drug Discovery, Development & Manufacturing, 2010. He was honored as a guest editor of the special issue of Metabolites entitled "MS-Based Drug Metabolism in Cancer Research. 2021"

Courses Taught and Coordinated

General chemistry 161 and 162, Central Connecticut State University, Spring 2017

Advanced Mass Spectrometry course at Brandeis University, Fall 2011

Coordinated and taught graduate-level course on drug metabolism and bioanalytical chemistry at University of Connecticut, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2011

Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry at Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s World Pharmaceutical Congress Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA 2005 and 2007

Drug Metabolism at Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s World Pharmaceutical Congress Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA 2007 and 2008

Capillary Electrophoresis-Mass Spectrometry, at Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, OH 1998

Education & Training

  • Post Doc
    UCONN/Chemistry/Pharmacology (1996)
  • PhD
    UCONN, Bioanalytical/Drug Metabolism (1995)
  • Visiting Scientist
    Kyushu and Nagasaki Universities (1994)

Activities

  • Short courses on drug metabolism (Parts 1 and 2)
    Philadelphia, PA, United States 2008
    World Pharmaceutical Congress Annual Meeting
  • Organized and chairperson for short course on drug metabolism
    Philadelphia, PA, United States 2007
    World Pharmaceutical Congress Annual Meeting
  • Organized and chairperson for short course on drug metabolism
    Philadelphia, PA, United States 2006
    World Pharmaceutical Congress Annual Meeting
  • Chairperson for drug-drug interactions session
    Philadelphia, PA, United States 2006
    World Pharmaceutical Congress Annual Meeting
  • Chairperson for DMPK workshop
    Boston, MA, United States 2006
    Evaluation and Validation of Preclinical DMPK Assays
  • Chairperson for DMPK session “Removing Compounds with Unfavorable DMPK Attributes Early”
    Philadelphia, PA, United States 2005
    World Pharmaceutical Congress Annual Meeting
  • Chairperson for short course on drug metabolism, “The importance of understanding metabolism in pharmaceutical research”
    Philadelphia, PA, United States 2005
    World Pharmaceutical Congress Annual Meeting
  • Idiosyncratic Drug Reactions: Approaches for reducing reactive intermediates discovery and development
    Philadelphia, PA, United States 2004
    ACS National Meeting
  • Method For Characterization of Metabolites in Drug Discovery Utilizing GENESIS Workstation and Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry.
    Orlando, FL, United States 2002
    ISSX meeting
  • Enhanced Separation for Nitrogen Containing Compounds in Plasma Using a Post-Column Reagent with Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry. (Bioanalytical Chemistry: MS)
    Orlando, FL, United States 1999
    Pittcon

Honors & Recognition

AwardAwarding OrganizationDate
Research and Development fellowshipBattelle Memorial Institute1999
Fellowship Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan1994
The Nat and Frances Sadow Scholarship in ChemistryUniversity of Connecticut1994

Professional Service

OrganizationRoleDate
Metabolites Guest Editor2023 - 2024
MetabolitesGuest Editor2021 - 2022
CT Science Fair Judge2020 - Present
New Haven high school (ESUMS)I served as a mentor for 9-12 grades students at ESUMS school in New Haven. I meet with the students at ESUMS every week to coach them translate their ideas for projects into finished products in time for the CT science fair in April and New Haven science fair in May. In this process, I taught them basic scientific concepts of chemistry and bioanalytical tools (e.g., validation, reproducibility). Also, I serve as a judge for CT science fair. 2019 - 2021
MetabolitesEditorial Board Member2018 - Present
The Open Drug Metabolism JournalEditorial Board Member2007 - 2014
Journal of Drug Metabolism LettersEditorial Board Member2007 - Present
The American Society for Mass SpectrometryMember2002 - Present
International Society for the Study of XenobioticsMember1995 - 2010
American Chemical SocietyMember1992 - 2016

Departments & Organizations