Newswise — Jeetendra (Jeetu) Eswaraka, DVM, Ph.D., DACLAM, who joined Rutgers University’s Office of Research and Economic Development (ORED) earlier this month as Assistant Vice President for Comparative Medicine Resources, brings a decade and a half of experience leading lab animal research programs in the biopharmaceutical industry.

“I am excited to welcome Jeetu to ORED and Rutgers, and look forward to strengthening and streamlining our operations to be of greater service to the Rutgers research community,” said Christopher J. Molloy, Ph.D., R.Ph., Senior Vice President for Research and Economic Development at Rutgers University. “He brings great depth and breadth of experience to this new role, both as a scientist and as a leader, and I am confident that he will effectively steer our resources to provide the highest standard of care and husbandry to animals in our care while supporting research and education at the university.”

In this newly-created position, Dr. Eswaraka will be responsible for the overall management of all comparative medicine resources at Rutgers University, including clinical veterinary services and operations in Newark and New Brunswick-Piscataway.

Most recently, Dr. Eswaraka led the Cell Signaling and Safety Biology group and served as Director and Attending Veterinarian at Amgen Inc., one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies. Previously, he worked at Pfizer Inc. in capacities of Site-head of Comparative Medicine (Cambridge) and Associate Director of Global Science and Technology (San Diego) leading an in vivo imaging lab for Oncology and Vaccine Research, and at GTx Inc., a pharmaceutical company dedicated to developing Selective Androgen/Estrogen Receptor Modulator therapies. He has published his work in several leading journals as well as holds patents for new drug development.

Dr. Eswaraka earned a veterinary degree from Madras Veterinary College in India and a Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center. Following his Ph.D., he obtained clinical experience at Purdue University Veterinary Teaching Hospital and then received his Educational Commission for Foreign Veterinary Graduates (ECFVG) certification from the American Veterinary Medical Association. He also completed a residency in lab animal medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center and obtained his Diplomate Status from the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine.

Dr. Eswaraka is an ad-hoc member of Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International and has been involved in the certification process for lab animal facilities across pharma and academia. He has served on the advisory committees for The University of Washington- Predictive Safety consortium and the NCATS-IQ advisory board for novel 3D “Organ-on-Chip” technologies to drive the development of translatable in vitro models of drug toxicity.

 

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Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state of New Jersey’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Established in 1766, the university is the eighth oldest higher education institution in the United States. Nearly 69,000 students and 22,000 full- and part-time faculty and staff learn, work, and serve the public at Rutgers locations across New Jersey and around the world. The university belongs to the Big Ten Academic Alliance, comprised of 14 world-class research universities, and is among the top 20 public U.S. universities for total R&D funding. Rutgers University–New Brunswick is the state’s only public institution in the prestigious Association of American Universities.

 

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