Eberly College of Science Honors Five with Outstanding Science Alumni Award

Five Eberly College of Science alumni were honored recently with the Outstanding Science Alumni Award for the year 2007. Receiving this award were Mildred S. Christian, Stephen DiBiase, John Patton, Angelo G. Scopelianos, and Chi Kong Shue. The award, established in 1997 by the Board of Directors of the Eberly College of Science Alumni Society, recognizes alumni who have a record of significant professional achievements in their field and who are outstanding role models for current students in the college.

Mildred S. Christian, Ph.D., Fellow, ATS, is the chairman and president of Argus International, Inc., a consulting service in regulatory affairs and reproductive and developmental toxicology. She also serves as the chairman and CEO of Argus Health Products, LLC, which provides biotechnological healthcare products for retail and professional uses. Christian has participated in the development of products for skin care, arthritis, and anti-cancer agents including Retin-A®, Renova®, Botox®, Tarazoten®, Tolectin®, Synvisc®, Lenalidomide®, and Taxol®, as well as many sunscreens, cosmetics, and fragrances. She has participated in over 1300 safety studies of agents and has interacted with more than 350 pharmaceutical and chemical organizations. She also has participated in the development of federal and international regulatory guidelines.

Christian obtained her doctoral degree from Thomas Jefferson University in developmental anatomy, focusing on teratology or the study of birth defects, and has been active in regulatory toxicology for more than 40 years. She obtained both her B.S. and M.S. degrees in zoology from Penn State. She was employed as the first female manager in the research-and-development division of McNeil Laboratories, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson Corporation, where she was part of a team that developed Retin-A®. She founded Argus Research Laboratories in 1979, Argus Research in 1980, and the Center for Photobiology at Argus in 1989 -- each of which she has served as chairman and president. After merging the Argus Family of Companies with Primedica, she served as group vice-president and then as a senior advisor in science and compliance with the Charles River Corporation until 2003. She is a past president of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences, the Teratology Society, the International Federation of Teratology Societies, and the American College of Toxicology, as well as the founding editor of the Journal of the American College of Toxicology. She serves on the scientific boards of several pharmaceutical companies and is a director of Pro-Pharmaceuticals, Inc. She is also a member and president of the Board of Trustees of the Kensington "Old Brick" United Methodist Church.

Stephen DiBiase, Ph.D., has served as the senior vice-president and chief scientific officer for the research, development, and engineering department of JohnsonDiversey since 2004. In this role, DiBiase is responsible for research and development efforts designed to yield business growth through technology and innovation. JohnsonDiversey is a $3 billion privately-held cleaning-chemical and service company with global customers in the hospital, hotel, restaurant, dairy, and food-processing markets.

Before joining JohnsonDiversey, DiBiase was employed for 26 years by Lubrizol Corporation, where he held a variety of leadership and general-management positions including vice-president of emulsified products and vice-president of research and development. He began his career at Lubrizol as a chemist. DiBiase earned his doctoral degree in chemistry from Penn State in 1978. He is a past member of the Board of Trustees of Mt. Union College and the board of the Industrial Research Institute. He is a 1974 graduate of St. John Fisher College with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry. He currently serves on Penn State's Eberly College of Science Dean's Advisory Board.

John Patton, Ph.D., is the founder and chief scientific officer of Nektar Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company that develops therapeutics with its industry-leading PEGylation and pulmonary-drug development-technology platforms. The company was founded as Inhale Therapeutic Systems, Inc. in 1990 and changed its name to Nektar Therapeutics in 2003. Before co-founding Inhale Therapeutic Systems, Patton led the drug-delivery group at Genentech, Inc., where he demonstrated the possibility of the systemic delivery of large molecules through the lungs. In January 2006, Nektar Therapeutics and the Pfizer corporation received approval from the U. S. Food and Drug Administration for an inhaled insulin therapy, Exubera.

Before joining Genentech, Inc., Patton was a tenured professor at the University of Georgia. He has published a wide range of scientific articles, has presented his work in national and international arenas, and has received numerous awards in recognition of his contributions to pharmaceutics and drug delivery.

Patton received his doctoral degree in biology from the University of California, San Diego and his Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Penn State. He held postdoctoral positions in biomedicine at Harvard Medical School and the University of Lund in Sweden.

Angelo G. Scopelianos, Ph.D., is vice-president of research and development (R&D) at Johnson & Johnson Corporation (J&J), with responsibility for two centralized R&D organizations: the Center for Biomaterials and Advanced Technologies (CBAT) and Johnson & Johnson Regenerative Therapeutics LLC (JJRT).

Under Scopelianos's leadership, CBAT, an applied research and early-product-development organization, provides the various J&J companies with novel biomaterials, drug-delivery systems, and cell-based technologies. The mission of CBAT is to transform medical devices through technical innovation in the areas of implantable devices, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, and drug-enhanced devices. CBAT has been successful in developing life-enhancing and lifesaving orthopedic, ocular, cardiovascular, urological, and wound-management devices.

In 2007, Scopelianos's responsibilities were expanded to include leadership of JJRT, whose mission is to contribute to the pioneering field of regeneration of human tissues and organs for the human body. This complex field requires the convergence of multiple technologies and scientific, engineering, and medical disciplines in pursuit of deciphering complex biochemical mechanisms that control the healing and regeneration of various components of the human body.

Prior to joining J&J in 1988, Scopelianos held managerial positions at E.I. Dupont's experimental station in the Medical Products Division and at Elf Acquitaine (formerly Pennwalt Corporation),where he led the Drug Delivery Systems group.

Scopelianos received his doctoral degree in organic chemistry from Penn State in 1983. He completed his Bachelor's degree at the State University of New York at Oneonta, where he recently was selected to receive an Honorary Doctoral Degree in May 2008.

Scopelianos has received several internal J&J awards for outstanding achievement in the field of research and development. In 2000, he was awarded the "New Jersey Leadership Award in Biomaterials Science" by a New Jersey consortium of universities and medical schools. He holds over 35 U.S. Patents. In addition, Scopelianos serves on several government roundtables, academic advisory boards, and international scientific and engineering societies.

Chi Kong Shue is currently the chairman and president of SDSC Global Foundation and CentriHall, Inc., both are non-profit 501(c)3 organizations. He has been involved in hi-tech venture investments and hi-tech private-equity investments in Taiwan, China, and the United States since 2002.

Shue was the executive vice-president at Sycamore Networks from 1998 to 2003, where he was responsible for the research and development of intelligent optical transport/switching systems and for development of the Asia market. Prior to Sycamore, he was the vice-president at Ascend Communications and a co-founder and the vice-president of engineering of Cascade. Shue also served at Open Software Foundation and Wang Laboratories, Inc. from 1978 to 1989.

Shue received a B.S.E.E. degree from Chiao Tung University in Taiwan in 1974 and a master's degree in both computer sciences and operations research from Penn State in 1978. He also studied at MIT's Sloan Graduate School of Management in 1979.

In 1998, Shue received the Asian-American Achievement Award from the University of Massachusetts for his contributions to the economic and social development of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He served as the president of NECINA in 2000, and he has served as a board director there since 1998. Shue currently holds three U.S. data-communication patents and is a member of IEEE and OSA.