Pharmacy is in the DNA of Leslie Benet, PhD ’65, professor emeritus in the UCSF School of Pharmacy Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences. His father and uncle were founders of a chain of pharmacies, but rather than join them in dispensing medicines, Benet chose to understand how medicines work, spending 61 years reshaping how they are dosed worldwide and mentoring budding scholars.

Benet helped shift the field from abstract lab measures to “clearance” — the body’s ability to eliminate a drug from the bloodstream — giving clinicians a practical tool for tailoring doses to each patient’s biology and disease.

He was among the first to show that the intestine, not just the liver, acts as a gatekeeper for drugs, a discovery so novel he patented it. He also led pivotal clinical studies demonstrating that generic drugs perform as well as brand-name medicines, helping make treatment more affordable and accessible.

Benet, who in May 2024 added an endowed professorship to a career marked by nearly every major award in pharmaceutical science, is most excited about what he's doing today. He has applied Kirchhoff’s laws of physics to pharmacokinetics, creating a simpler framework that upends 75 years of dogma.  

Read more about our 2026 UCSF Pharmacy Alumni Association Alum of the Year, who beams when he talks about having trained and mentored more than 150 doctoral and postdoctoral scholars. “It is a thrill to both make discoveries and to teach mentees who will carry them forward,” he said.