A new drug therapy for parkinson’s disease, called Vyalev, holds promise to improve life for the estimated 1 million Americans living with the progressive neurological condition. One of it’s inventors is University of Kansas Pharmaceutical Chemist Valentino Stella, who can claim a long track record of developing drugs that improve people’s lives. Through the course of his 43 year career, Stella now has been credited as inventor of seven FDA-approved drugs, all while teaching at KU. Those include anti-cancer agents, a water-soluble form of phenytoin for major epileptic seizures; and several others. He says he remembers several years ago when a surgeon told him a woman had gone into an epileptic seizure during surgery and when other drugs didn’t work, he took the new drug Stella had just developed and it worked immediately and saved the woman’s life.
Stella says that’s what it’s all about. Not the accolades, the promotions, the tenure or the recognition, it’s the impact you can make on people’s live. It also helped him become a better teacher, being able to talk about things he developed, students not having to rely on a book to get information.
