Binghamton School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences welcomes three new faculty members

Binghamton University’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SOPPS) welcomes three faculty members in the 2026 semester. These three members — Daniel Ciulla, Islam Ghazi, and Patrick Meek — bring expertise that strengthens Binghamton’s commitment to research, education, and innovation. 

With focuses on assay development, antimicrobial stewardship, and pharmacy informatics, their work reflects the evolving needs and career opportunities in pharmacy and creates exciting new opportunities for students to learn from faculty engaged in some of the most forward-thinking fields available.

Daniel Ciulla, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences

Ciulla, a Vestal native, earned his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and his doctorate in the chemistry of biological systems from Binghamton University, where he trained in enzyme kinetics and protein purification while studying Sonic Hedgehog (SHh) protein. Much of his research focuses on identifying new screening assays for drug targets, which led to a postdoctoral fellowship in the Assay Development and Screening Technologies lab within the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

“I like assay development because it's a good application of problem-solving,” he said. “In this space, we've all got the same set of tools to play with, but it's how you put the pieces together. If I see a protein target that warrants deeper investigation, I think about the other tools I've seen people using and how I could apply them to make something new.”

Ciulla’s pathway to Binghamton began as a pharmacy technician, where he expanded his skill set for six years while considering a medical path. He decided the operating room wasn’t the place for him and moved on to Broome Community College before transferring to Binghamton University. His first order of business was finding a way to get involved with research.

He joined the lab of Associate Professor of Chemistry Brian Callahan, who later convinced him to pursue a doctorate while researching SHh protein, which is implicated in birth defects and cancer. This is where he became passionate about finding new ways to screen for disease. Back at Binghamton, he hopes to adapt his practice to study new disease targets aside from SHh, such as inflammatory bowel disease or tick-borne illness.

The new Ciulla Lab works toward this goal by producing innovative biotechnology, focusing on a drug discovery platform known as the Structural Dynamics Response (SDR) assay. Research into the assay encompasses DNA design and synthesis, protein production and purification, ligand-binding assays, and cell culturing. 

“The drug-discovery pipeline is both time-consuming and expensive; the early stages are in some senses limited by the methodologies that we have available to us for screening new drugs, either in their throughput, cost, or complexity of use,” he said. “The SDR assay solves a lot of these problems that you may find in conventional screening techniques. It's highly sensitive because it's based on a bioluminescent enzyme; it's target agnostic, meaning you're not stuck to studying one protein target or one disease. It's also not limited by the types of drugs you want to study; you could study small molecules, proteins, DNA, really anything that's a ligand that binds to your target protein.”

As a scholar and teacher, he’s looking forward to the upcoming year — not only for the chance to recruit new team members to his lab and engage with Binghamton’s exceptional students, but to become a better scientist himself.

“I've been really impressed by the pharmacy students,” Ciulla said. “That's another reason why I want to be prepared. I feel like they have an understanding where they can ask insightful questions, and I want to have something ready to give them an answer, even though there are always going to be questions that I'm not going to know. I want to learn from them, too.”

Islam Ghazi, experiential education coordinator and clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice

Ghazi is a perfect candidate to help students find pharmacy experiences —since he’s explored most of the paths throughout his career.

“I've been in the practice as a pharmacist for a long time. I have experience that covers both sides of the equation,” he said. “I have been a preceptor myself, and I have been a practitioner. I think with my previous experience, that gives me the bandwidth to know the needs of the students and needs of preceptors, and how to match these needs, optimize the learning environment, and provide the best practices.”

Now a clinical pharmacy academician, infectious diseases specialist, and translational researcher, Ghazi originally planned to go into nuclear physics. But his older sister was a pharmacist, and when he saw the respect she carried in her community and the financial and career success she had in the role, he followed in her footsteps.

He was preparing to earn his PhD when he was recruited by the pharmaceutical industry, where he worked for five years; then, when he had his first son, he “changed his mind” a third time and returned to clinical practice, which later allowed him to meet David Nicolau, a leader in infectious diseases. He spent time researching at the Center for Anti-Infective Research and Development at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, before joining academia.

“I learned there, from scratch, how to develop antibiotics and how to understand infections and use different models to build new drugs to kill bacteria,” Ghazi said. “My main interest is working with antibiotics, modifying what we have, trying to build new antibiotics, and in the process, fighting resistant bacteria.”

Over his two decades of experience, spanning three continents, Ghazi has made significant contributions to the field of antimicrobial drug discovery and development. He served as a project lead with a research group in Japan, resulting in an antibiotic product later approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and his work on novel antimicrobials helped shape contemporary understanding of optimal dosing strategies in special populations, particularly patients undergoing renal replacement therapy. 

This work has led to one of his lifelong passions: antimicrobial stewardship. He notes that he was drawn to this field because it required him to be very savvy — not just inventing new antibiotics, but discovering ways to use them wisely.

“A hundred years ago, we didn't have any antibiotics. Anybody who got an infection was probably destined to die. We had the first antibiotic almost 90 years ago, and the improper use of antibiotics has now led to bacteria becoming resistant,” he said. “Every practitioner, every healthcare professional, should be aware that we need to use antibiotics wisely to preserve their ability to fight infections. Otherwise, someday we will reach the point that we don't have any tools left.”

As he starts the school year, Ghazi is excited to explore database analysis, which can allow researchers like him to analyze and explore national trends and address gaps in the healthcare system. He’s also looking forward to listening to students about their experiences with artificial intelligence and how it has affected their studies, with the hope that he can guide future pharmacists to success.

“My biggest goal is to master this new role for me as an experiential coordinator; that's my priority,” he said. “I'm looking forward to optimizing that training environment for students. This is their last exposure before becoming a healthcare professional. We're looking to make sure that we really prepare them to be good pharmacists out there in the field, representing the profession and our school.”

Patrick Meek, PharmD, MSPH, clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice

Before joining SOPPS, Meek earned his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the State University of New York at Buffalo, his master’s degree in population health sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Cincinnati. He also held academic appointments at Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (ACPHS) and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Pharmacy. 

Meek, originally from Buffalo, was first introduced to pharmacy in a small community hospital where he volunteered, which led him to the Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center, where he worked while completing his Doctor of Pharmacy degree. With that experience under his belt, he quickly found a longtime interest in drug information and pharmacy informatics, what he calls an “exciting future avenue for pharmacists” with the advent of electronic health records.

“Those early experiences at the hospital and poison center showed me how vital real-time information is for clinical decision-making,” Meek said. “Electronic health records allow us to turn complex drug data into accessible information resources, anchoring pharmacy informatics directly in evidence-based medicine.”

His career has focused on advancing pharmacy practice, medication safety, and pharmacovigilance through research, teaching, and mentorship. As project director for the Innovate in Pharmacovigilance Fellowship, Meek mentored students, residents, and fellows in investigating patterns and outcomes of care for patients with gastrointestinal disorders and comparing alternative treatments based on medication effectiveness, tolerability, and cost.

His teaching works to help students understand complicated information and translate clinical research findings into advances in therapeutic intervention as a part of their practice.

“As the rate of new drug approvals quickens, textbooks can’t keep up,” he added. “You have to be able to critique the literature as it appears. It often takes months or even years for clinical guidelines to reflect a new therapy, leaving pharmacists and other clinicians to decide in the meantime which patients might benefit the most from it.”

Another project which he has been exploring focuses on the pharmacist labor market. To do so, he’s analyzing a large database of online job postings back to 2010; he’s optimistic that he can evaluate evolving skill demand, so that training programs can be in step with what employees are seeking in the workforce.

“The end goal is to have a better understanding of the qualifications that are desired by employers, so that training programs can be constructed to give students those skills,” he said. “It's a workforce demand assessment, allowing programs to fine-tune themselves so that they can ensure that graduates have the skills desired by the employers. If you want to have a competitive training program, you should know what the job market is looking for!”