Biography

Dr. Pradeep Karla obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and completed the one-year professional leadership training (LEAD) from the Stanford University, Graduate School of Business. 

Dr. Karla has been serving as a Vice-Chair of the HU Faculty Senate since August 2022. As a Vice-Chair, he serves as a member of the University Faculty Council and the Steering Committee. Since Dr. Karla took charge, significant progress has been made. Dr. Karla reactivated the Senate committee work by ensuring that all the Senate committees elected the Chairs and initiated the committee work. Dr. Karla held the first comprehensive committee meeting with the senate chairs in January 2023 and documented the findings reported by the chairs. Dr. Karla organized the second comprehensive committee chairs' meeting in April 2023. The goal of the second meeting was to measure the progress made on the issues reported during the first meeting and document additional findings. A third comprehensive meeting with the Senate committee chairs is being scheduled in June 2023, and the annual report will be shared with the faculty members.  

Dr. Karla has been working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dr. Karla serves on the executive board of the reputed biopharmaceutical angel investor organization, Washington D.C. Archangels, and serves as a consultant provost and professor for the Washington D.C. Archangels Entrepreneur Training Institute. As a Principal Investigator (PI), Dr. Karla, received a highly competitive AACP New Investigator Grant, NIH-funded KL2 Grant, and several other grants as PI and Co-I. Further, Dr. Karla's research on teaching method development includes implementing new technologies to promote active learning in the classroom. Dr. Karla's classroom teaching involves integrating the tablet touch interface of faculty and student tablet PCs via a Wi-Fi network to create a real-time interactive platform. Dr. Karla received the “Teaching with Technology Award” from the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CETLA) and Excellence in Teaching Initiatives Grant from Howard University. Dr. Karla's work and student feedback assessment data on implementing the teaching technology can be accessed at the following links:

https://cetla.howard.edu/featured_teacher/archive/karla.html

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RQoUsO-ckQ4HvRQEfgQhN6KQCeZ1q3Cy/view?usp=sharing

Further, Dr. Karla received the Distinguished Faculty Award, Professor of the Year Award, Faculty Professionalism Recognition Award, and multiple other awards at HU-COP. The significance of Dr. Karla's group’s research involves the discovery of new drug efflux transporters on human ocular tissue and human immune CD4 T-Cells. Dr. Karla's group findings on new HIV drug targets and the novel formulation design for sustained antiviral drug delivery were awarded a U.S. patent (US patent 1,020,552). Dr. Karla's research demonstrated for the first time that these transporters play a vital role in decreased bioavailability of drugs employed in chronic disease states such as glaucoma and HIV. Dr. Karla's group’s research was cited by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) as one of the eight promising research contributions that have the potential for a therapeutic cure for glaucoma.

The AACP citation of Dr. Karla's research group work (Title: “Glaucoma, Your Time is Running Out”) can be accessed at the google drive link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10KFWzslTtJ8x8yDx-rgWCKnnjhQmGh2J/view?usp=sharing