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Dr. Dennis Gross is the CEO and Professor of Pharmacology for the Pennsylvania Drug Discovery Institute (PDDI) and Distinguished Professor of Experimental Therapeutics and Medicinal Chemistry at the Blumberg Institute. He is also faculty in the Jefferson College of Life Sciences and Adjunct Associate Professor of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics in the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University (TJU). In addition, he is Corporate Faculty at Harrisburg University of Science & Technology, Professor of Basic Sciences at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, and a member of the National Visiting Committee for the Northeast Biomanufacturing Center and Collaborative. Prior to his current role with the PDDI, he was Associate Dean for Program Development and Assessment and Director for the Professional Science Masters Programs and Associate Director for Curriculum for the TJU Postbaccalaureate Pre-Professional Premed Program which he initiated.
Prior to this, he was at the Merck Research Labs (MRL) for 29 years, retiring in 2006 as Senior Director and Head of West Point Business Operations with overall responsibilities for capital planning and facilities in PA, CA, and MA. He was also responsible for lab projects and operations oversight at MRL sites in Canada, Japan, Italy, and the UK. In his career at Merck, he held several positions ranging from bench scientist and a member of the team that discovered and developed the ACE inhibitors Enalapril and Lisinopril for hypertension. He was also head of computer resources and divisional data security administrator, manager of international strategic planning, a member of a cross-divisional M&A team, coordinator of site closure activities at various remote sites, and liaison for basic research and clinical development in Japan working with Banyu Pharmaceuticals. During his tenure at Merck, he also was an Adjunct Professor of Global Logistics in the School of Business and Industry of Florida A&M University. Additionally, he has worked with the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, DC on policy issues relating to biological weapons of mass destruction.
He has maintained a consultancy practice in laboratory facility design, strategic planning, and management. He was part of a project teams bidding on designs for research and teaching labs at Georgia State University, Penn State University, and a new graduate university complex in Saudi Arabia. He has worked with KlingStubbins, The Jacobs Consultancy, The Hay Group and RTKL in the development of an organizational structure, master site plan, facility design and bid documents for a 3,090,000 sq. foot site complex for the Saudi Arabian FDA.
He received his BA (1969) and MS (1970) from California State University Northridge and his PhD (1974) from UCLA pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship on an NIH training grant at the Tulane University School of Medicine where he was also an instructor in the Pharmacology Department. He has also participated in executive education programs at Wharton, MIT, Harvard, and the Tufts School of Law and received NIMS and ICS certification from the FEMA Emergency Management Institute. He was the National Co-Chair for the Annual Biotechnology Entrepreneurship Bootcamp program. He is a member of the American Association for Pharmaceutical Scientists, American Chemical Society, History of Science Society, International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering, Sigma Xi, and a member of the Executive Office of the Sino-American Pharmaceutical Professionals Association. He is currently the Editor at Large for the Journal of Global Bioentreprenurship. He was previously the co-editor of the journal of Technology Transfer and Entrepreneurship and associate editor of the Journal of Commercial Biotechnology.