Ronald J. Tallarida, PhD

Life and career

Ron Tallarida was born and raised in Philadelphia. He earned a bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics in 1959 and a master's degree from Drexel University. In the early 1960s he turned his mathematics to pharmacology, and in 1967 he earned his PhD at Temple University.

He joined Temple's pharmacology faculty and rose to professor over a career of more than four decades. He chaired the Department of Pharmacology and served as vice provost for faculty affairs. He was also a senior investigator in Temple's Center for Substance Abuse Research and a co-investigator in its Integrative Pharmacology Core. For many years he taught biomedical engineering at Drexel as an adjunct.

Research

Dr. Tallarida was widely regarded for his expertise in theoretical and quantitative pharmacology, and he was a pioneer in drug-receptor theory. His contributions covered drug combination theory and synergism, including linear and nonlinear isobolography, as well as dose-response analysis, drug-receptor binding, epidemiology, and biostatistics.

His publications reached across cardiovascular, analgesic, cancer, gastrointestinal, metabolic, endocrine, neurological, drug abuse, and anti-infective pharmacology. He wrote nearly 300 articles and eleven textbooks and held several patents. He consulted for government research agencies, including the Department of Defense on treatments for traumatic brain injury, and for the pharmaceutical industry. He was a member of ASPET from 1970 and served as president of the Mid-Atlantic Pharmacology Society.

“In addition to an uncanny ability to make the complex seem simple, Ron was profoundly teachable, a great learner indeed.”

Rodney B. Murray, PhD, and Tom J. Parry, PhD, MBA, The Pharmacologist, March 2017

Mentor and friend

To his graduate students, Ron was a mentor first. He held court over coffee, lunched with students as often as with colleagues, and introduced them to faculty across the medical school. He guided them through their careers and personal lives, and he wrote countless letters of recommendation along the way.