Rate My Professor Greg Walker

Associate Professor Greg Walker serves as Associate Dean (Research) and Head of the Bayer Centre for Dairy Animal Health / Pharmaceutical Science and Product Innovations in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Otago. He earned his BSc, MSc, and PhD from the University of Otago, with his doctoral thesis investigating drug delivery systems in salmon. After completing his PhD, Walker pursued post-doctoral research in Austria and Germany. He then joined a UK biotechnology company as Research and Development Manager, where he invented PeproStat, a lead technology for a new class of topical haemostat that has successfully completed phase two clinical trials. Following the sale of the company, Walker returned to the University of Otago in 2013 as a lecturer, advancing to his current associate professorship.

Walker's research focuses on the formulation and delivery of bioactive molecules, emphasizing physico-chemical principles that govern absorption, disposition, and efficacy enhancement through delivery systems. He possesses extensive expertise in polymeric drug delivery, biopharmaceutical formulation engineering, project management, and pre-clinical studies, with applications in veterinary and animal health. As a principal investigator, he is a key contributor to three Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment grants totaling over NZ$19 million, targeting vaccines, novel antimicrobials, and crop bioactives. His scholarly output includes publications such as 'Anaerobiosis and mutations can reduce susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to tobramycin without reducing the cellular concentration of the antibiotic' (Pathogens, 2025, with W. Krittaphol et al.), 'A sensitive reverse-phase ultra performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method for the determination of tobramycin in Pseudomonas aeruginosa cell lysate' (Journal of Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Analysis, 2025, with W. Krittaphol et al.), 'A landscape review of controlled release urea products: Patent objective, formulation and technology' (Journal of Controlled Release, 2022, with W. Liu et al.), and 'Low-wavenumber Raman spectral database of pharmaceutical excipients' (Vibrational Spectroscopy, 2020, with K. Bērziņš et al.). Walker has received the $50,000 Proof of Concept Grant from Otago Innovation Limited in 2012 for a medical device aimed at minimizing surgery complications and the $25,000 KiwiNet Emerging Innovator Fund grant in 2016 for developing a prototype electrospinning device for nano-webs. He has presented on topics including 'Bridging the gap: Research collaboration between academia and industry' at the School of Pharmacy Research Symposium in 2024.