Rate My Professor Peter Anderson

Peter Anderson, PharmD, serves as Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, between 1985 and 1991, followed by a Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy in Minneapolis from 1994 to 1998. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology of Antiviral Compounds at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis from 1998 to 2001. Anderson joined the University of Colorado faculty in 2002 and has progressed to his current roles, including Co-Principal Investigator of the CLIA-certified Colorado Antiviral Pharmacology Laboratory and Co-Director of the Pharmacology Specialty Lab. This laboratory provides assay support and pharmacological expertise for NIH-funded national and international clinical trial networks.

Anderson's research centers on the clinical pharmacology of antiretroviral medications, emphasizing the cellular pharmacology of nucleoside analogs for HIV prevention, antiviral drug pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic relationships in humans, drug concentrations for adherence assessment, and development of assays for drug and metabolite quantification in unique biological compartments. His laboratory pioneered a dried blood spot test to measure tenofovir-diphosphate, a key metric for evaluating adherence to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drugs like Truvada (tenofovir/emtricitabine). This innovation became an industry standard in HIV research and supported major trials, including iPrEx, which demonstrated 99% efficacy for consistent daily PrEP use in preventing HIV infection among men who have sex with men, and the DISCOVER trial comparing Truvada to Descovy. These findings, presented at conferences like AIDS 2014 and published in journals such as The Lancet Infectious Diseases, have profoundly impacted global HIV prevention strategies. For his outstanding contributions to research and graduate education, Anderson was selected by peers as the 2020 recipient of the John and Barbara Shell Prize, the highest honor from the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences graduating class.