Mike Jay, PhD, received his BS in pharmacy from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1976 and his PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Kentucky in 1980. He was an assistant professor of nuclear medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center from 1980 to 1981 and then returned to the University of Kentucky as an assistant professor of medicinal chemistry in 1981 and rose through the academic ranks. By the end of his twenty-seven years at the University of Kentucky, he was professor of pharmaceutics and professor of radiology. He also served as the director of graduate studies from 1992 to 1998 and director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Science & Technology from 1998 to 2007.

He moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008, where he was named the Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor of Molecular Pharmaceutics. He served as director of graduate admissions for the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics until 2012, when he was named division chair.

Jay has received a number of awards, including the Berson-Yalow Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine, the Mendell Award for Scientific Excellence in Pharmaceutical Sciences, the Excellence in Pharmaceutical Graduate Education Award from the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Kentucky. He was also named a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. He is also the cofounder of Arcato Laboratories, Inc. and Capture Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Research Interests

Jay’s research projects are centered on the interface between the pharmaceutical and nuclear sciences. They involve the application of pharmaceutical approaches to solve problems related to nuclear imaging and therapy and the use of radioanalytical approaches to solve problems encountered in the development of novel formulations and drug delivery systems.