Each month, the editors of three of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutic’s (ASPET) journals choose who they call their Highlighted Trainee Authors. These early-career scientists are recognized for their innovative research published in The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Drug Metabolism and Disposition, and Molecular Pharmacology. This feature showcases selected young scientists, demonstrates what drives them and reveals why pharmacology is important to them. This month we are featuring the April 2025 Highlighted Trainee Authors.
Mia Allen
The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
Mia Allen is a fourth-year Neuroscience PhD candidate at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Her passion for neuroscientific research related to substance use shaped her career path.
Her father, an addiction psychiatrist, played a significant role in her decision to pursue a degree in neuroscience. Shadowing him exposed her to the complexities of substance use and the urgent need for more effective treatments. Witnessing the lack of pharmacological options, especially for cocaine use disorder (CUD), motivated her to pursue research in this field. Joining Dr. Michael Nader’s lab for her PhD work grew her passion for substance use research and her experiences in the lab have solidified her decision to stay in academia.
The goal of Allen’s research is to identify and evaluate potential treatment approaches for CUD. Through this work, she hopes it will contribute to developing personalized treatment approaches to reduce cocaine use and help decrease the devastating toll substance use can have on individuals and communities.
“My long-term goal is to evaluate how potential treatments, like dopamine transport blockers used in this recent JPET study, affect cocaine self-administration and examine if and how the efficacy of that intervention changes when other substances are co-used with cocaine,” said Allen.
Being published in The Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics means a lot to Allen. “Having my own work featured in this journal is an honor and I hope to continue to be able to publish my work in the journal. I am also preparing a manuscript for Pharmacological Reviews that will serve as the introductory chapter to my dissertation.”
Ankit Balhara
Drug Metabolism and Disposition
Ankit Balhara is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Washington. At a young age, he was fascinated that a single pill could alleviate pain and improve lives. His curiosity in science and medicine led him to pursue pharmacy after high school, setting him on a path to explore drug development and its impact on human health. Throughout his graduate studies, Balhara received mentorship and guidance from Dr. Saranjit Singh, who saw his potential early on and encouraged him to pursue research. Professor Jashvant Unadkat also further fueled his passion for research by involving him in groundbreaking studies related to drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics in pregnancy. Their guidance shaped Balhara’s career including research and its real-world applications.
Balhara believes that despite the growing popularity in using cannabinoids in clinical pharmacology, there remains a critical knowledge gap regarding their potential to induce drug-metabolizing enzymes and transporters. This can alter the pharmacokinetics of co-administered drugs, leading to unanticipated drug interactions.
Balhara explains, “My research provides essential mechanistic insights into these interactions, offering a foundation for evidence-based drug labeling, regulatory policies, and clinical decision-making. By bridging this knowledge gap, my work has the potential to enhance drug safety, optimize therapeutic regimens, and protect patients from unintended adverse effects, ultimately shaping the future of cannabinoid-based therapies.”
Balhara’s career goals include working in the pharmaceutical industry where he can apply his expertise in drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, and PBPK modeling to support drug development programs. By contributing to the optimization of drug safety and efficacy, he hopes to impact patient care on a broader scale.
When asked what it means to be published in Drug Metabolism and Disposition, Balhara shares, “Having my research published in DMD is a great honor, as it not only validates the significance of my work but also affirms that my contributions are recognized and valued by the scientific community.”
Joy Li
Joy Li is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Studying at her local community college and California’s public universities, in addition to mentorship, played an essential part in Li’s career development and decisions.
After a molecular biology course, Li was invited by the course instructor, Professor Brian McCauley, to a lab-based project to help optimize some cloning protocols which gave her a glimpse into bench science as a career possibility. Continuing a back-to-school journey, Li found mentorship while studying neurogenetics in Dr. Miri Vanhoven’s lab at San Jose State University, and more recently, cell biology of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) signaling with Dr. Mark von Zastrow at UCSF. Both mentors taught her a lot and reinforced her choice to pursue a career in science.
Li’s research is part of an ongoing body of work to understand how different drugs exert selective effects on cells and organisms. “When a doctor prescribes an analgesic at the operating table, the benefit of the drug comes with substantial risks ranging from mild inconvenience to death. If we can understand how and why these outcomes are linked, it could allow us to discover how to select for beneficial outcomes,” she explained. “I hope my work provides both a mechanistic framework and a potential protein interaction screening tool for therapeutic discovery.”
When it comes to future career and research goals, Li hopes to apply the first principle-based bench practices she learned as a student and continue to adapt new tools to answer pressing biology questions.
For Li, the iterative learning process of thinking from first principles, designing and carrying out experiments, and learning from experimental data is, in and of itself, the most rewarding part of her work. Also, collaborating on projects and sharing what she learned with the wider community are equally exciting and rewarding.
It “means a lot to me that my work is published in [Molecular Pharmacology]. ASPET journals have been consistently publishing high-quality papers that helped me understand the field of GPCR signaling and trafficking.”
