Resume

• 2012

  ACRP Global Meeting

  University of Mississippi Medical Center

  HarborWay Clinical

  LLC

  E-Center of JSU

  HarborWay Clinical LLC

  was a multi-specialty site network for clinical trials which I tried to set-up for running clinical trials in private practice settings in central and coastal Mississippi. The company was founded in 2011 and we closed doors in December

  due to insufficient numbers of trials to make the business viable. At that time

  Dr Piletz returned to academia as Professor of Biology

  Mississippi College. During its existence

  HarborWay Clinical LLC was trying hard to leverage the unique population of Mississippi for more pharmaceutical industry clinical trials. Proportionately so few clinical trials are being run in Mississippi. According to WebMD Physician Online Directory

  one Mississippi region had a specialist to resident ratio of 1 Physician for every 6

  453 residents

  compared to the national average ratio of 1 for every 3

  065 residents. I saw this disparity not as a drawback but rather as a chance for surplus research subjects per doctor

  making the opportunity for quicker study recruitment - much as is the case in developing countries where clinical trials are frequently done. We were advertising broadly to the pharmaceutical industry and allied CROs for new trials to meet most of the diseases that are rampant in Mississippi from an outpatient perspectiv. From a supply and demand viewpoint

  on a cost per subject basis

  and due to concern for enrolling more minority subjects

  Mississippi still stands as a great place to run clinical trials. \nSpecialties: At its height

  HarborWay Clinical LLC was able to conduct outpatient clinical trials in the following areas: allergies

  arthritis

  asthma

  child psychiatry

  COPD

  depression

  diabetes

  epilepsy

  geriatric psychiatry

  hyperlipidemia

  hypertension

  migraine headaches

  multiple sclerosis

  neuropathies

  osteoporosis

  Parkinson’s

  pain management (including anesthesiology

  disc disorders

  & fibromyalgia)

  schizophrenia

  and wound healing.

  Foray as an entrepreneur

  HarborWay Clinical

  LLC

  Maywood

  IL

  Former professor of Psychiatry Research at Loyola U-Chicago. I had a grant from the NINDS for 3 years on protection from hypoxic-ischemic brain damage. I also was the first Principal Investigator on a clinical trial from Astrazeneca IIRG entitled “Cardiovascular Risk Biomarkers During Quetiapine Antidepressant Treatment” (A Halaris inherited this PI when I left Loyola in 2010). This grant ran from August 1

  2009 and ended in the summer of 2013. http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00951483?term=NCT00951483&rank=1

  Research Professor

  Loyola University Health System

  Describing the scientific progress of my clinical trial site: HarborWay Clinical LLC

  ACRP Global Meeting

• 2011

  Managing clinical trials and human research in Mississippi

  Trainingcampus.net

  Mississippi

  The vision for my business was to bring medical school research training via a training campus that I set-up to private practice settings in Mississippi. It was reasoned that training records kept online paired with personal seminars

  that we could soon become a viable network of sites for outpatient clinical trials

  Mississippi's documented abundance of patients coupled with low operating costs and minimal red-tape should have made us highly competitive when bidding on trials from the pharmaceutical industry. The seven physicians recruited to serve as my Principal Investigators already had well-established practices but generally little prior experience running their own trials (though I did). They drew patients widely from Carthage

  MS

  in the center of the state to Biloxi

  MS on the gulf coast. I established an in-waiting-rooms televised recruitment network (affiliated with Cytec Systems). In this way

  potential subjects were provided information about clinical trials in the doctor's waiting rooms. At the outset I had hoped that my reputation alone would be able to draw clinical trials to these sites but overcoming the newness factor proved difficult

  and eventually we turned to brokers to find our trials. This

  however

  cost extra and led ultimately to the business plan not getting over the hump. Hence

  my business closed in 2015. It was however

  a great learning experience about entrepreneurship.

  Formerly HarborWay Clinical LLC: Founder

  Owner

  & Chief Operations Manager

  Managing clinical trials and human research in Mississippi

  Researched the neurobiological under-pinnings of depression and the mechanism of action of antidepressants; niche focus was on imidazoline receptors

  agmatine

  and platelets as a surrogate marker for neurons.

  University of Mississippi Medical Center

  Mississippi College

  Dept. of Biology

  Clinton

  MS

  In 2013

  I joined the faculty of Mississippi College primarily to teach in the Master’s of Medical Sciences program. Founded three years prior by Dean Stan Baldwin

  Ph.D.

  this program has attracted top students from around the country. The textbooks we use and the course materials are essentially identical to that which is offered during most of the first two years of typical US medical schools. We are housed in a new

  state-of-the-art

  facility (http://www.mc.edu/academics/departments/biology/) and I have a new research endeavor on neuronal signalling between the gut microbiota and the enteric nervous system. In 2015 I was assigned the role of \"Liaison for International Student Success in Math and Sciences\". In this role I currently track around 70 students per semester trying to ensure their matriculation

  meet with them as often as need arises

  and simply offer a faculty member they can talk confidentially to. I also offer tutoring and mentoring serves whenever possible. The first paper I published at Mississippi College is attached below. It is about agmatine

  an endogenous substance that promotes nerve health

  which was actually years in the making and involved an international group of co-authors.

  Current Position: Professor of Biology

  Championing my clinical trial site: HarborWay Clinical LLC

  Trainingcampus.net

  Jackson State University

  Chemistry Department

  My employment at Jackson State University (JSU) began in 2003

  when I was appointed Full Professor of Biology. This came under the vision of Dean Mohammed and President Ron Mason who envisioned me to establish a Center of Neuroscience at JSU. Although some progress was made on that goal during a site visit from the NIH in 2003

  the vision stalled when Hurricane Katrina hit

  forcing me to seek relocation - and so in 2005 I moved north to assume a Full Professorship at Loyola U of Chicago. The hurricane aside

  my collaborative research with JSU continues via a subcontract grant to Jackson State

  and this eventually culminated in a U.S. patent for a new pharmacological target which later led to my induction in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2010. Hence

  upon my return to Mississippi in 2010 to start a clinical trials business

  I sought for and received a part-time reinstatement on the faculty of Jackson State University

  this time in the Chemistry Department. From 2012-13 I taught in JSU's graduate school: the Biochemistry 500-700 series. In addition

  a major NIH-COBRE grant application was organized and submitted which advanced my status at JSU to Full-time Visiting Professor. Then

  when I accepted the Professorship in Biology just west on HWY 80 at nearby Mississippi College

  I effectively retired from Jackson State University. Not withstanding

  I remain loosely engaged in collaborative research projects with Professor Hongtao Yu at JSU and am open to resubmit the COBRE grant

  or re-envision other grants within the JSU group

  as opportunities arise.

  Visiting Professor of Biochemistry

• 2010

  Gilad&Gilad LLC

  Championing clinical trials of agmatine.

  Gilad&Gilad LLC

• 2001

  Eli Lilly and Company

  Characterization of the first cloned imidazoline-1 receptor which we named IRAS.

  Eli Lilly and Company

• 1974

  English

  Chinese

  Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

  Dissertation was \"The Genetic Control of Two Components of Murine Milk\".

  Biological Chemistry in Program of Developmental Biology

  Majored in Biochemistry and Genetics. Advisor was Dr. Roger E. Ganschow.

  University of Cincinnati

  3.9 GPA

• 1970

  BA

  Zoology

  Graduated Cum Laude. Advisors were Dr. Sam and Betty Smith in the Biochemistry Department.

• Neuropharmacology

  Lifesciences

  Clinical Research

  CTMS

  Molecular Genetics

  Genomics

  In Vivo

  Pharmacology

  Clinical Trial Management

  Biochemistry

  Diabetes

  Pharmaceutical Industry

  Genetics

  Translational Research

  Science

  Neuroscience

  Cell Culture

  Psychiatry

  Clinical Trials

  CRO

  P-Selectin in major depression: preliminary findings with venlafaxine

  C Lindsay Devane

  Jim Sinacore

  He Zhu

  Debra Hoppensteadt

  Jawed Fareed

  Omer Iqbal

  Angelos Halaris

  P-Selectin in major depression: preliminary findings with venlafaxine

  Angelos Halaris

  This was a Leading Article in this issue.

  Agmatine: metabolic pathway and spectrum of activity in brain

  Chunyu Liu

  Rajeep Ranade

  Xiaotong Zhang

  Database of Gene Studies of Bipolar Disorder

  https://www.mc.edu/faculty/JPiletz. \nNotice the background to my LinkedIn page shows Mississippi blueberry bushes and consider

  if you will

  how they connect with my new research idea about brain health? I call it the \"bottoms-up\" approach (pun intended). I'm referring to the symbiotic garden that exists within each of us - the gut microbiome - and how it signals our brain! Until recently

  neuroscientists have shied far away from gut microbiota because of the yuk factor (poop) and those few studies that did deal with them mainly were killing them. Thanks largely to the advent of high-throughput DNA sequencing

  the microbiota is now appreciated for exerting a myriad of healthy benefits - and there is solid science behind probiotics & prebiotics effecting much more than obesity. Textbooks tell that probiotics act by competing-out nasty toxic bacteria within the digestive system. Closer analyses in recent years of the normal fauna within us have uncovered profound and unexpected host-microbiome interactions that

  in particular to my studies

  regulate tonic signals in a system called the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis (MGB axis). Besides its immuno and hormonal branches

  the moment-by moment signalling branches of the MGB axis finds substrate in the enteric nervous system (ENS). The ENS is essential for digestion but it is also connected upstream to the brain through ganglion

  parasympathetic

  and sympathetic systems - and therein lies my interest. How does this happen and how influential? Good bacteria called commensals signal upstream to our brain

  and \"bad\" bacteria called endotoxic bacteria promote disease and dysfunctional states. Different enteric bacteria emit chemical signals to each other as well as to the endothelial cells of the gut

  which signals the ENS

  which signals upwards to the brain. Challenging minds and shaping lives; this is not only my teaching mantra but it is something worth exploring from the diet upwards to our brains and behavior!

  Piletz

  PhD

  John

  Piletz

  PhD

  Loyola University Health System

  Mississippi College

  Jackson State University