125 stories for 125 years

Val Stella

Professor Val Stella graduated from the college in 1967, then travelled to the USA to obtain his PhD at the University of Kansas. He moved to the University of Illinois for two years before returning to the University of Kansas to take up a position as a professor.

Val loves teaching and, with mentoring from the late Takeru Higuchi, became an inventor and entrepreneur. He is the inventor or co-inventor of two drugs: fosphenytoin (Cerebyx®) for the treatment of epilepsy and Viread® for the treatment of AIDs, and a new solubilising agent, Captisol®, used to dissolve intractable drugs for injectable use. He also has a new anesthetic drug, Aquavan®, in clinical trials. Three companies in the Lawrence / Kansas City area – CyDex®, Crititech® and ProQuest® Pharmaceuticals – were co-founded by him.

Val's success at the university led to the formation of the Intersearch program. Takeru Higuchi from the University of Kansas and Nigel Manning, dean of the college (1963 to 1978) established the program, which gives an outstanding graduate from either institution the opportunity to engage in intensive training in research methodology within the PhD course at either campus.

In addition to these achievements, Val has 33 patents and many publications and awards. He was awarded the ninth annual UNICO National Marconi Science Award, which is presented to a full time resident and citizen of the USA who is of Italian descent and is involved in the physical sciences.