Scientists Join Higuchi Bioscience Center Staff

Gerald Rork has joined the Higuchi Bioscience Center's Center for Bioanaly-tical Research as a research professor. Rork has 25 years of experience in analytical and pharmaceutical research and management. His background covers both basic drug delivery research and pharmaceutical product development with expertise in controlled release dosage forms, drug absorption enhancement, analytical methods development, pro-drugs, technology transfer and ophthalmics. Most recently he worked as a pharmaceutical consultant for Boehringer-Ingelheim Animal Health, Inc. Rork has been an adjunct associate professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Kansas School of Pharmacy. He earned his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of Kansas and studied under the late Takeru Higuchi.

Andrei Surguchov has joined the lab of Robert Palazzo, professor of molecular bioscience at KU, as a researcher. As a research associate professor, he will be working with Palazzo on the NIH-funded COBRE grant to study the role of the centrosome in cell replication and neurodegen-eration. Surguchov comes to KU from the department of ophthalmology at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was a research associate professor. He also conducted research at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and at the University of Utah at Salt Lake City. Surguchov earned his Ph.D. at the Cardiology Research Center in Moscow, Russia.

Irena Surgucheva also has joined Palazzo's lab as a research assistant professor on the centrosome maturation grant. Surgu-cheva will also continue her study into glaucoma. She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Moscow State and also worked as a researcher at Washington University in St.Louis, Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Utah.