Brandon Shepherd: Pursuing Solutions to Substance Use Disorders Through Pharmaceutical Sciences Research

PhD Pharmaceutical Sciences

Brandon Shepherd is a PhD candidate in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Temple University School of Pharmacy with a concentration in pharmacodynamics. After completing his undergraduate degree in pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Michigan, Brandon decided to pursue his graduate studies at Temple. His research focuses on drugs that act on a class of central nervous system receptors called alpha-2 adrenergic receptors. He’s found community through the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department and at the Center for Substance Abuse Research.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

What degree are you pursuing and can you briefly describe the chain of events that led you to pursue a graduate degree at Temple? 

I'm pursuing a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences. We have three different focuses. Medicinal chemistry, pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics, and pharmaceutics, which focuses on drug delivery formulation. I'm in the pharmacodynamics section, so my work is looking at drug action, to speak broadly.  

I did my undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, studying pharmaceutical sciences as well. And I just really loved the work and my classes. In my final semester there, I had a class that was taught by a behavioral pharmacologist. All of her work was looking at substance use disorders and opioid research. I really loved that course. I took a year between grad school and undergrad and then applied here because it has a great program for substance use disorder research and has the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the medical school. 

What have you been enjoying about studying and living in Philadelphia? 

I'm from a really small town in Michigan, so I enjoy the big city. It's a good change of pace. I like that I can walk to so many different things. Studying here has been wonderful. I think I get a good mix of interactions from people in the pharmaceutical sciences department and the people over at the medical school and the Center for Substance Abuse Research. I can go to a lot of different people for advice. I can walk across the street to talk to neuroscientists or down the hall to an immunologist to get different perspectives, which has been a great experience.

Can you share a bit about your research? 

My research specifically focuses on a class of drugs called alpha-2 adrenergic receptor agonists. They are sedatives for use in animals (vet med), but currently also increasingly found as adulterants in illicit fentanyl supplies used by people. And that took root right here in Philadelphia. What we do is behavioral pharmacology work. We look at how the addition of those drugs to fentanyl supplies may be impacting the rewarding aspects of fentanyl or the withdrawal state of fentanyl or different things like the time course effects. 

I hope that my work can help shed some light on the effect that these drugs are having. They're kind of a novel point in terms of drug adulteration where it's not a more potent opioid that's being added, it's not a stimulant being added to the drug supply. It's this sedative anesthetic that doesn't map onto the classic kind of drug adulteration scenarios that you've seen in the past. 

How do you manage the challenges of being a graduate student? 

The first challenge in the first two years is balancing getting your research started up while rotating through labs and your coursework. It's different than working a part-time job in college and doing classes. You're a lot busier in the lab. And then moving past that once you're done with your courses and you've done your qualifying exams, you have to learn how to manage your time really well. That was certainly a learning curve for me. Mapping out experiments days and weeks ahead, knowing when you're getting a new drug in so you can do your next step. And just always thinking kind of two steps ahead has been probably the most valuable lesson learned there. 

Are there any specific mentors or people you look up to in your work that you might want to shout out? 

Of course. I have to shout out my faculty advisor, Ellen Walker. She's been a great mentor to me, taught me everything that I've known the past two and a half years now that I've been in her lab. And she's really opened a lot of doors for me to go to different meetings and meet people and present my work. She's always willing to hear me out on the next experimental idea that I have.  

Another person worth shouting out would be Carlos Barrero, and he's another professor in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department. Anytime I give a talk for something, he's always coming up to me and giving me advice on what he liked and areas to improve. I've come to him with thoughts about projects, and we've had some really good discussions about things there. So he's been certainly a good mentor to me as well.