Gary A. Piazza received a Ph.D. in pharmacology from The University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1986, completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, and was a Research Assistant Professor at Brown University. Dr. Piazza worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a Staff Scientist with the Proctor and Gamble Company from 1989 to 1994 and as Senior Director of Biology with Cell Pathways Inc. from 1994 to 2001. From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Piazza was the Director of Pharmacology at
the University of Texas Institute for Drug Development in San Antonio. From 2003 to 2011, Dr. Piazza was a principal investigator at Southern Research in Birmingham on numerous grants and contracts and a program director for an NIH-funded molecular libraries screening center. From 2011 to 2021, Dr. Piazza was appointed Professor of Oncologic Sciences and Pharmacology and Chief of the Drug Discovery Research Center. Dr. Piazza joined Auburn University in 2021 as Professor and Head of the Department of Drug Discovery and Development and Director of the Cancer Research Center in the Harrison College of Pharmacy. Dr. Piazza’s research interests are in discovering and developing experimental anticancer drugs that target RAS and Wnt/β-catenin signaling. His research has been funded continuously by the NIH since 2004. Dr. Piazza has over 140 publications and is an inventor on numerous patents. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.
