Awards & Honors

Venetia Zachariou, PhD, Named Class of 2025 Fellow of American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics

Venetia Zachariou, PhD, Edward Avedisian Professor and chair of pharmacology, physiology & biophysics, has been named a Class of 2025 Fellow of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET). Selection as a Fellow is an honor bestowed to the most distinguished members of the organization. Fellows are recognized for their meritorious efforts to advance pharmacology, through their scientific achievements, mentorship and service to the Society. Zachariou is one of 17 new Fellows.

ASPET members conduct basic and clinical pharmacological research and work for academia, government, pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies and non-profit organizations. Members work in a variety of different fields and include neuroscientists, toxicologists, chemical biologists, pharmacists, cardiovascular scientists and many more. Though very diverse, members have a common bond through their membership in helping develop new medicines and therapeutic agents to fight existing and emerging diseases.

Zachariou studies signal transduction and epigenetic mechanisms of neurological disorders and their treatment using genetic experimental models, genomic assays and brain biochemistry. Her projects have investigated transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms of chronic pain with emphasis on the identification and validation of novel treatments for the management of peripheral neuropathy, which afflicts more than 20 million Americans, and other chronic pain conditions. Her team has identified several intracellular pathways that control the perception and the maintenance of chronic pain states. They also have developed novel interventions in epigenetic pathways that allow transitioning to non-opioid analgesics while preventing the development of physical dependence.

Zachariou received her BSc in pharmacy from the University of Patras, Greece, and her PhD in pharmacology from Augusta University’s Medical College of Georgia. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in the department of psychiatry at Yale University and a junior faculty position at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, she established her laboratory at the University of Crete School of Medicine. In 2012, Zachariou joined the departments of neuroscience and pharmacological sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York as an associate professor, then a full professor before coming to BU in 2023.

Zachariou is a member of the editorial boards of Biological Psychiatry, Science Signaling, Neurobiology of Pain, British Journal of Pharmacology and Molecular Pharmacology. She is a Fellow in the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and she served as the Chair of the ASPET Neuropharmacology Division form 2023-2025.

ASPET is the premier scientific organization for pharmacologists. Since 1908, ASPET has been committed to providing our members with the tools and resources to advance their careers, promote their research and discipline, and build lasting relationships with fellow colleagues.