On July 15, Jill Kolesar became the 10th dean of the University of Iowa (UI) College of Pharmacy. In addition to her role as dean, she is a professor of pharmaceutical sciences and experimental therapeutics, holding the Jean M. Schmidt Chair in Drug Discovery.  

Previously, she was professor of pharmacy at the University of Kentucky and the Dr. Michael E. Karpf Endowed Chair in Precision Medicine at Markey Cancer Center. She also held an administrative position at the Markey Cancer Center as the co-leader of the Translational Oncology Research Program. 

A prolific research scientist, Kolesar has extensive experience in oncology drug development and precision medicine. She has authored more than 400 abstracts, research articles, and book chapters, and as a principal investigator has received more than $25 million in research funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), ARPA-H, the American Cancer Society, and other sources. In addition, she has 9 patents or patents pending and has founded two start-up companies, Helix Diagnostics and VesiCure Technologies, based on technologies developed in her laboratory.

Kolesar earned her Doctor of Pharmacy at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, where she also completed a residency and fellowship in oncology. 

What interested you in applying for the deanship position at the UI College of Pharmacy? Why Iowa?

There are so many great things about Iowa. I’m a Midwesterner and a Big Ten person at heart, so I’m happy to be closer to my kids who live in Wisconsin. So, on a personal level, it’s great for me. I feel very at home here. 

Why this position in particular? There are so many great things about the UI College of Pharmacy. So much potential and opportunity for growth, especially with the Community-Based Pharmacy Residency Program and UI Pharmaceuticals. Also, my background is in oncology, so lots of potential synergies between the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center and the college.  These are just some of the things that make the UI College of Pharmacy extraordinary.   

You’ve been heavily involved in research. What made you want to step out and become a dean?

I love research and learning new things, and I enjoy doing things that help people. That’s why I focused my career on drug development. But I thought I could have a bigger impact as the dean. I can support other people’s research and help them grow it. 

I’ve been part of a cancer center for the last 20 years, which is very interdisciplinary. A cancer center brings together people from many different fields, all to improve the care of cancer. Pharmacy schools are sometimes a bit of an island, only working within the pharmacy school, so a key goal is to bring the UI College of Pharmacy together with the other health colleges, the cancer center, engineering, and business because I’m confident we can do more together. 

Your research focuses on precision medicine and oncology drug development. Can you explain that a bit more? What draws you to this area and research in general?

Precision medicine is a revolution in oncology care. My research started out looking at biomarkers to predict response to cancer drugs. I was very fortunate that it went from a research question to a clinical reality in my lifetime after we identified biomarkers and found drugs that targeted them. 

Precision medicine is essentially sending a sample of a patient’s cancer to a lab, where mutations in the cancer are identified. Then an individual cancer treatment is based on those mutations.  Individualized therapies, or precision medicines, work better, have fewer adverse effects, and people live longer with a better quality of life. 

However, the problem is that new discoveries are often slow to get from academic medical centers to the community, where the vast majority of patients are treated. Being a first-generation college student from a rural area, that’s a topic very near and dear to my heart. 

When I learned new discoveries were slow to make it to rural and underserved communities, I wanted to develop a program to help make novel therapies more accessible to the community.  When the new UI Health Care cancer center director, Dr. Mark Burkard, and I were both in Wisconsin, we formed a molecular tumor board, which is a panel of experts evaluating cancer mutations and helping community oncologists select a therapy for their patients. We made the molecular tumor board available all around the state at no cost to the patient or the community physician.  We did it in Wisconsin, and I did it again in Kentucky, and we plan to explore it in Iowa, too. 

The research you’ve done not only had an impact on cancer treatment in general, but then you doubled that impact by bringing it to a community that doesn’t always have access to that kind of care. 

Precision medicine is saving people’s lives, but it takes almost 20 years for a discovery to be disseminated into the community. That’s too long. It’s critical that these incredible strides forward are available to everyone, regardless of where they receive their care. I feel fortunate I could play a small role in making this happen.

You recently became chair of the steering committee for the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network® (ORIEN). Can you talk about what ORIEN is and its mission?

ORIEN is a network of cancer centers that have come together to share data. The mission is to understand more about cancer and use that knowledge to develop new therapies and improve outcomes for patients. 

What are your short-term goals for the college? 

My short-term goal is to meet our community members – faculty, staff, alumni, donors, and friends – and get to know them. That’s what I’m working on now. The next goal is to have a successful accreditation site visit in October, and I can’t commend the committee enough. They have done so much to get the self-study put together, and now we just need to have the visit. 

My next goal is to initiate a new strategic planning process and then move forward with new initiatives.

How about your long-term goals? And how do these align with the university’s strategic goals?

The university recently announced priorities around writing, neuroscience and cancer, and the state has a number of initiatives to promote rural health. My long-term goals are to establish translational teams in the key areas of neuroscience and cancer and take our discoveries from the bench to the bedside to the community. 

The other thing I’m passionate about advancing is community pharmacy practice in our rural areas, and I plan to establish translational and interdisciplinary teams here as well.

What challenges do you foresee lie ahead for the college?

Higher education in general is facing some challenges. There is some lack of confidence in higher education. There are also fewer people in high school so there will be fewer people going to college. This all translates into fewer people available to attend pharmacy school and enrollment challenges for the college. 

The other issue is increasing competition for research funding, which underscores why collaboration is key. Larger and more comprehensive teams are required to bring in research funding. 

The UI College of Pharmacy seems uniquely equipped to create those types of collaborations.  

We’re already very strong in cancer and neuroscience, and I plan to build on those strengths. We also have a nationally known rural community pharmacy residency program, and I plan to enhance and grow those programs that we’re already so good at.

Where do you draw your motivation from? 

From my desire to help people. Whether it’s helping a pharmacy student learn or leading a research program to develop new drugs, I draw my motivation from making things better for people. 

I find the science of cancer to be incredibly interesting. It’s a funny story how I got into cancer research. I was in pharmacy school when I saw an episode of a PBS program about the immunology of cancer and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). I thought, “That’s it. I’m going into cancer research. This is the most interesting thing I’ve ever heard of in my life.” Now 30 years later, TILs are approved as a drug, and I’m still in the field.

It’s also a great time to be in science because discoveries are happening at such a rapid pace. Priorities have also shifted to translation or using scientific discoveries to improve human health, which I love since it makes a more direct connection between the science and the impact it can have on people’s lives. 

What makes you excited for the future?

I’m excited about what we can do in Iowa. I’m excited about what the UI College of Pharmacy can do to improve things for people who live in Iowa. I think the possibilities are limitless, whether we are putting more pharmacists into rural communities that can manage their care or making exciting scientific discoveries in our labs and in our clinics. There are so many talented people here who are collegial and want to work together. These are tremendous resources. That makes me really excited about the future.