The 13th Annual Indiana CTSI Disease and Therapeutic Response Modeling and Simulation Symposium
The 13th Annual Indiana CTSI Disease and Therapeutic Response Modeling and Simulation Symposium
The 13th Annual Indiana CTSI Disease and Therapeutic Response Modeling Symposium, took place on Tuesday, February 27 to Thursday, February 29, 2024, at Hine Hall in Indianapolis, IN on the vibrant IUPUI campus. This was a collaboration between the Maternal and Pediatric Precision in Therapeutics (MPRINT) Hub and the Indiana CTSI Disease and Therapeutic Modeling & Simulation Program.
The 13th Annual Indiana CTSI Disease and Therapeutic Response Modeling Symposium was made possible by our donors, whose incredible generosity and support made this event accessible to all:
In-person registration is now full. A virtual option is being provided.
Dr. Susan Abdel-Rahman is a pediatric researcher, innovator, educator, and clinician with 25 years of experience in academic medicine. She is a former professor of Pediatrics and Marion Merrell Dow/Missouri Endowed Chair in Pediatric Clinical Pharmacology. She also directed Health Care Innovation for the Children’s Mercy Research Institute, directed an NIH funded T32 fellowship program, and provided clinical care as part of a Clinical Pharmacology consult service before transitioning into her current as Chief Scientific Advisor for a Kansas City-based technology start-up. Dr. Rahman has held leadership roles at the regional, national and international levels including serving as Chair of Missouri Medicaid’s Drug Utilization Review Board, President for the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Technical Advisor to the World Health Organization. As a PI she has received funding from a wide array of sources including the NIH, U.S. FDA, CDC, WHO, Pharmaceutical Industry, private foundations, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She also has numerous patents to her credit including medical devices that have been cleared by the FDA and screening tools that have been licensed to private sector companies. She continues to consult with public and private organizations in the area of pediatric pharmacology, pediatric trial design and conduct, and innovation implementation in developing countries.
Rena Byrne, PhD
Senior Scientist
Metrum Research Group
Rena Byrne has over 16 years of experience in pharmaceutical research. She is currently a Senior Scientist at Metrum Research Group, where she works on a variety of modeling and simulation projects to support model informed drug delivery (MIDD) in rare diseases, oncology, immunology, and diabetes. The types of analyses she works on include population pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD), to support dose selection and filing to government agencies (FDA, EMA, and PMDA), optimal sampling, and simulations in special populations. Her background is biomedical engineering and she got her start in the pharma industry as a lab scientist, supporting the discovery stage of drug development. She is very glad she learned about pharmacometrics early in her career and is happy to be doing meaningful and challenging work with wonderful colleagues and clients.
Rich Bergstrom, PhD
Adjunct Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and PK/PD Consultant
Indiana University
RBergstr@IU.edu
Dr. Bergstrom's interest is in the area of PK/PD. It was an integral part of his 33 years conducting research at Eli Lilly and Company and in his academic teaching and research appointments at Indiana University School of Medicine and Butler University College of Pharmacy and Heath Sciences. In addition, he is the principal owner of a consulting firm and a partner in other consulting consortia that provide PK/PD, clinical pharmacology, and BA/BE expertise. This work includes modeling preclinical data as well as data from clinical pharmacology studies in humans. Dr. Bergstrom's research history revolves around extensive modeling of PK and PD data from a variety of clinical pharmacology studies and simulating the expected PK/PD properties of various drugs predicting results for clinical trials and testing the feasibility of novel application of drugs. He has research expertise in modeling in humans including Phase I to Phase IV research for regulatory objectives, as well as animal PK/PD/TK studies, and oral bioavailability and bioequivalence evaluation of a wide variety of drugs and drug candidates in animals and humans.
Lais da Silva, PhD
Assistant Research Professor of Medicine and Core Director
Indiana University
Dr. Lais da Silva received her B.S. in Chemistry (2011) from Uni-Goias, Brazil, her M.S. in Health Sciences from Federal University of Goias School of Medicine, Brazil, and her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Florida College of Pharmacy. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at University of Florida Center of Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology under the mentorship of Dr. Rodrigo Cristofoletti. Dr. Da Silva is currently a Research Assistant Professor in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Her research interests include integrating in vitro biorelevant systems information with modeling & simulation for translational and clinical pharmacology. Her research currently focuses on development and application of PBPK and PK/PD modeling & simulation to inform Drug Discovery and Development in oncology and Alzheimer’s Disease, clinical decision-making in women’s health and family planning, as well as dose optimization in underrepresented populations.
Sam Callisto, PhD
Metrum Research Group
Mary Choules, PharmD, PhD
Associate Director New Technologies
Astellas Pharma Global, Inc
Mary Choules is a member of the New Technologies Group within Early Development and has been with Astellas for 5 years. She has a PhD in Pharmacognosy and a Doctorate in Pharmacy from University of Illinois Chicago College of Pharmacy. Her background is in analytical chemistry and drug discovery from which she branched into PBPK modeling. She has worked on a variety of projects from small molecules to antibody drug-conjugates and her work has helped to inform the drug label on several projects. Today she will be speaking on the PBPK modeling she did in pediatric cancer patients with the antifungal drug, isavuconazole, and the potential for drug-drug interactions with the chemotherapy agent, vincristine.
Mathangi Gopalakrishnan, Mpharm, MS, PhD
Assistant Professor, Graduate Program Director
University of Maryland, Baltimore
Dr. Mathangi Gopalakrishnan is Assistant Professor at the Center for Translational Medicine, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Dr. Gopalakrishnan is a quantitative clinical pharmacologist and biostatistician by training with more than 10 years’ experience using innovative quantitative approaches to guide precision therapeutics in pediatric, maternal and critically-ill patient populations. Dr. Gopalakrishnan is a co-investigator in multiple grants involved in design and analysis of pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic studies for nutritional supplements and low-calorie artificial sweeteners in pregnant and postpartum women. She is experienced in clinical trial design and drug development strategy and is currently involved in several drug development projects including the development of artificial blood product and medical countermeasures. She has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and is the recipient of American College of Clinical Pharmacy’s Best teacher award in 2018. She is also the program director for the online Masters program in Pharmacometrics at UMB. She obtained her Masters in Pharmacy from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India and her Ph.D in statistics from University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Emma Hughes, PhD
Gilead Sciences
Emma received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Mount Holyoke College and PhD from the University of California at San Francisco in their pharmaceutical sciences program. There she worked in Dr. Rada Savic’s pharmacometrics group where her research focused on building PK/PD models for infectious diseases in special populations. Currently, Emma works as a pharmacometrician at Gilead Sciences.
Mutaz Jaber, PharmD, PhD
Gilead Sciences
Dr. Jaber currently is a pharmacometrician at Gilead Sciences while also serving as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Minnesota. He earned his Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) from Jordan University of Science and Technology. Following that, he received a PhD and postdoctoral training in pharmacometrics and a minor in computational statistics from the University of Minnesota.
Since 2020, he has authored and co-authored more than 40 original research including more than 10 conference abstracts. Dr. Jaber's research focuses on understanding and quantifying uncertainties in pharmacometric nonlinear mixed-effects models.
Ryan Jarrett, PhD
Advisor, Global PK/PD & Pharmacometrics
Eli Lilly & Company
Dr. Jarrett received his PhD in biostatistics from Vanderbilt University in 2021, where his dissertation focused on developing statistical methods and R tools for automated delivery of anesthesia. He subsequently received a Fogarty Global Health Program fellowship to work with the Aurum Institute, based in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the design and analysis of early phase trials for preventative tuberculosis treatments among individuals living with HIV. Following this fellowship, in 2022, he joined Eli Lilly as an Advisor in Global Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics. At Lilly, his work has primarily focused on advancing treatments for COVID-19 and diabetes/complications through early phase trials.
Lang Li, PhD
Professor and Chair
Department of Biomedical Informatics
College of Medicine
The Ohio State University
Dr. Lang Li was trained in the Department of Biostatistics from 1996-2001 from The University of Michigan. His PhD thesis was about pharmacokinetics model in which the drug’s volume of distribution is time dependent. Dr. Li has a Biostatistics PhD with a minor in pharmacology. In 2001, he started his academic career in the Indiana University School of Medicine. Between 2010-2017, he served as the Director of The Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. Since 2017, he has become the Chair of Department of Biomedical Informatics in The Ohio State University.
During his early career (2001-2008), he successfully developed a Bayesian approach for physiologically based pharmacokinetics model for midazolam and ketoconazole drug interactions; and discovered a number of pharmacogenetics variants in predicting clinical outcomes of hormone therapy (Tamoxifen), chemo therapy (paclitaxel), and target therapy (bevacizumab) in breast cancer.
Between 2008-2017, Dr. Li’s research extended toward medical informatics. Through EMR data mining and literature-based text mining, Dr. Li has tested and validated several important drug interactions and their increase myopathy risks, including loratadine/simvastatin, chloroquine/simvastatin, and fluconazole/omeprazole/clonidine drug interactions.
Since 2017, Dr. Li has dedicated significant amount of effort in studying drug interactions between medication-assisted treatment (MAT) and co-medications among patients having opioid use disorder. In this recent research, he and his colleagues discovered a number of interaction drugs with methadone and buprenorphine, including gabapentinoids, baclofen, and benzodiazepines. Using pharmacokinetics models, he further validated the pharmacokinetics mechanisms of these drug interactions. In a recently funded research project, Dr. Li’s lab is tasked to build up a pharmacology knowledge base for pediatrics and maternal patient populations, with a special focus on opioid use disorders.
Dr. Li’s lab is extremely well funded. As PI or MPI, he has been awarded $35M from 11 R01/U01/P30 grants in six NIH institutes, including NIGMS, NLM, NIA, NIDA, NCI, and NICHD. As the contact PI, his recently awarded NLM R01, “Machine learning drives translational research from drug interactions to pharmacogenetics” is scored 10 at 1%.
Dr. Li has published 300+ peer reviewed papers in medical, informatics, pharmacology, biology, and biostatistics journals. Professionally, Dr. Li serves as the associate editor in IEEE Computational Biology and Bioinformatics; and Frontiers in Pharmacology. Dr. Li was a regular member of NIH study section, Clinical Data Management and Analysis.
Dr. Li has mentored a significant number of post-docs (10) and PhD students (15). Eight of his trainees have become faculty members in academic institutes, and all of them are pursuing their research since their graduations.
Sven Mensing, PhD
Head of Pharmacometrics
Abbvie
Sven leads a group of 30 quantitative scientists supporting the most challenging modeling & simulation activities in Clinical Pharmacology. Using mechanistic mathematical models and advanced statistical tools, his pharmacometrics team delivers data driven assessments to optimize AbbVie’s clinical development strategies for speed, size, and insight.
Sven joined Abbott/AbbVie in 2008 where he contributed to the success of numerous assets (including Humira, Mavyret, Venetoclax and many more) striving towards replacing the need to observe with the ability to predict by using science, math, and IT.
Sven holds a PhD in Medical Informatics from the University of Heidelberg and a master’s degree in Biomathematics from the University of Greifswald. Sven was named Senior Research Fellow in 2023. He holds several patents, AbbVie Awards, and publishes his work
Tomoyuki Mizuno, PhD
Associate Professor of Pediatrics,
Division of Translational and Clinical Pharmacology,
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Lan Ni, PhD
VP, Global PKPD & Pharmacometrics
Eli Lilly & Company
Lan Ni, PhD, VP, Lilly Global PKPD&PMx. Lan obtained her BS in Clinical Pharmacology from Shanghai First Medical University (now Fu Dan University). After working as a Clinical Pharmacist in a hospital, she pursued her graduate education in US and obtained her MS and PhD in Pharmaceutical Science from the University of Georgia. She joined Eli Lilly in 1995 as a PKPD scientist and subsequently as a management and scientific Leader for Lilly’s Global PKPD and PMx organization.
Brian Overholser, PharmD
Professor of Pharmacy Practice
Purdue University
Dr. Brian R. Overholser, PharmD, FCCP, is a Professor at the Purdue University College of Pharmacy and Adjunct Professor in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He also serves as the director for Graduate Programs in Clinical Pharmaceutical Sciences and Health Services, Outcomes, and Policy in the College of Pharmacy. The goal of his research program is to identify mechanisms toward the pathologic regulation of voltage-gated ion channels using cellular and animal models that are translatable to clinical practice. His multidisciplinary research team has published over 50 original research papers in addition to 14 book chapters. This translational research has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, Showalter Trust, Lilly Endowment, American College of Clinical Pharmacy, and the American Heart Association. Dr. Overholser contributes to the teaching mission by coordinating the core Pharmacogenomics course in the College of Pharmacy and is an instructor in several graduate and professional courses related to Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacokinetics at both Purdue University and through the T32 Clinical Pharmacology program in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology.
Yuki Otani, MD, PhD
Advisor, Global PK/PD and Pharmacometrics
Eli Lilly & Company
Yuki Otani earned his MD from Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan in 2013 specializing in pediatric pulmonology. After earning Japanese pediatric board in 2019, he earned his PhD in Clinical Pharmacology from Keio University in 2022 where he acquired his skillset as a pharmacometrician. He has joined Eli Lilly and Company Global PK/PD and Pharmacometrics Group in 2022 focusing his research on immunology compounds including the ones which he will talk about today.
The overview of the talk is as below: During drug development, there is a need for standardized way of justifying the dose selection for pediatric studies, especially in Phase 3 and commercial dose decision. One of the common ways of approaching this is matching adult systemic exposures of drug to the ones in pediatric patients when efficacy is partially or fully extrapolated. The presentation will go over the flow of real example of modeling and simulation that helped justify the pediatric patient trial dose selection that was to be used for Phase 3 study and registration in the future. By showcasing the challenges the team faced during the process and what measures were taken to mitigate the challenges will be beneficial to all the attendees relevant to drug development.
Elimika Pfuma Fletcher, PharmD, PhD
Clinical Pharmacology Policy Lead
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Elimika Pfuma Fletcher, PharmD, PhD, is a Policy Lead in the Office of Clinical Pharmacology (OCP) at the FDA. Her primary areas of focus are pediatric and maternal pharmacology. She previously served as a Senior Clinical Pharmacology Reviewer supporting Oncology drug products from 2009-2016. She holds a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Houston College of Pharmacy.
Sara Quinney, PharmD, PhD
Director, Disease and Therapeutic Response Modeling Program
Jim Rhodes, PharmD, MSc, BCPS-AQ Infectious Disease
Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice
Midwestern University, Pharmacometrics Center of Excellence
Midwestern University, Chicago College of Pharmacy
nrhode@midwestern.edu
Dr. N. Jim Rhodes, PharmD, MSc, BCPS AQ-Infectious Diseases completed his Doctor of Pharmacy degree at the University of Florida and a Master of Science in Clinical Investigations at Northwestern University. He also completed four years of post-graduate training including a pharmacy practice residency, a specialty infectious diseases residency, and a two-year fellowship in Infectious Diseases Pharmacotherapy focusing on clinical outcomes and pharmacometrics. Dr. Rhodes is currently an Associate Professor at Midwestern University where he serves as a clinical and didactic instructor in infectious diseases therapeutics and clinical pharmacokinetics. In 2018, he joined the Midwestern University Pharmacometrics Center of Excellence. In 2020, he released a user interface for the Optimal Data Analysis non-parametric machine learning algorithm which is available in R. In 2023, he became the Fellowship Director at Midwestern University College of Pharmacy, Downers Grove Campus. He is currently engaged in clinical-translational research at Midwestern University and Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he practices clinically in acute-care infectious diseases and antimicrobial stewardship. He actively participates in infectious diseases organizations, publication peer-reviews, extramural funding reviews, and continuing education content for clinical pharmacy specialties.
Stephan Schmidt, B.Pharm, PhD, F.C.P.
Professor & Director, Center for Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology
University of Florida
Stephan Schmidt is an endowed Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutics at the University of Florida, where he also serves as the Director for the Center for Pharmacometrics and Systems Pharmacology. He received his B.S. in Pharmacy from the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany, and his PhD in Pharmacy from the University of Florida in Gainesville, USA. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at the Leiden-Amsterdam Center for Drug Research, he rejoined the University of Florida as faculty in 2012. Dr. Schmidt’s research focuses on the development and application of mechanism/physiologically-based drug-disease trial models to address clinically relevant questions in the area of antimicrobial chemotherapy, chronic progressive diseases, special patient populations, and drug-drug interactions. He published more than 140 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts, 8 book chapters, and 2 textbooks, including the fifth edition of Rowland and Tozer’s Clinical Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics textbook, one of the world-wide leading textbooks in the quantitative clinical pharmacology arena. He received numerous awards including the University of Florida Excellence Award for Assistant Professors in 2013, the Tanabe Young Investigator Award from the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (ACCP) in 2016, the Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Mentoring Award from UF’s College of Pharmacy in 2018, the Excellence in Academia, MIDD+ Scientific Conference Award in 2021, and the University of Florida Research Foundation Professor Award in 2023. Dr. Schmidt serves as clinical pharmacology section editor of the European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences as well as editorial board member of the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and the European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Scientific Advisor to the Editors of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Stacey Tannenbaum, PhD
VP of Scientific Engagement
Metrum Research Group
Stacey Tannenbaum, PhD, FISoP is the Vice President of Scientific Engagement at Metrum Research Group. Prior to joining MetrumRG, Stacey spent 20+ years in the Pharmaceutical industry, working as a PKPD modeler at Novartis and Astellas, then leading the Astellas Pharmacometrics group. She earned a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Applied Math from the University of Arizona, and a postdoctoral fellowship from The Center for Drug Development Science at Georgetown. Stacey has had significant impact on the global modeling and simulation community by co-founding the International Society of Pharmacometrics (ISoP) and serving as its first President; she serves on a number of ISoP committees and interest groups including the Statistics and Pharmacometrics Special Interest Group. Stacey received the ISoP Fellowship in 2014 and Leadership Award in 2018. Stacey also co-founded the American Conference on Pharmacometrics (ACoP) and is the Executive Committee chair for the World Conference on Pharmacometrics (WCoP). She served as a board member of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS), chaired the AAPS M&S Focus Group, and was the co-chair for the AAPS Forum for Connecting Predictive Modelers.
Nieves Velez de Mendizabal, PhD
Senior Director, Pharmacometrics
Gilead Sciences Inc
nieves.velezdemendizabal@gilead.com
I joined Gilead Sciences, Inc.in 2022, bringing 15 years of experience between academia, Pharmacometrics consulting and the pharmaceutical industry. I received my BS and MS in Computer Engineering and Science at the University of the Basque Country (Spain). I received my Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the same university. During my Ph.D., I did an internship at the Center for Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School (Boston, MA). My post-doctoral research was developed at University of Navarra, School of Pharmacy (Spain) and Indiana University, Division of Clinical Pharmacology, School of Medicine (Indianapolis, IN), being later promoted to assistant professor. In 2014, I started working at the PK/PD & Pharmacometrics Department with Eli Lilly (Indianapolis, IN), using modeling and simulation to inform decision making in all phases of drug development (preclinical and clinical) across a range of therapeutic areas. In 2020, I transitioned to Metrum Research Group where I provided pharmacometrics and clinical pharmacology support to multiple pharmaceutical companies. I have maintained an adjunct position at Indiana University, Division of Clinical Pharmacology, School of Medicine since 2014.
Modeling and simulation are my passion. I always enjoyed the idea of predicting “the future”. Although my current position in industry is more a leadership role, I am a modeler. This is my core. Developing new models and helping others to is my joy. On my opinion, having leaders with a deep understanding of our methodology is fundamental. I’m a big advocate of the inclusive culture, where anyone can feel save to speak up and to find their authentic self. Empowering our colleagues and more junior scientists to be themselves is the best way to create innovation and passion for our field, Pharmacometrics. Different cultural and social backgrounds, life experiences, academic backgrounds, and expertise brings to the table different points of view. Innovation never arises from homogeneous thinking. One of my top interests is to mentor early-career scientists with different academic and personal backgrounds. We need to keep forming, inspiring, and empowering the new generation of modelers. Based on my personal experience in career development, I have a particular interest mentoring woman. I’m also a big advocate of collaborations between industry and academia. We all are responsible to promote and increase the impact of Pharmacometrics in science and drug development, and academia is our foundation.
Jon Wagner, DO, FAAP, graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry with cum laude latin honors from the University of Missouri-Columbia and received his medical degree with magna cum laude honors from Kansas City University College of Osteopathic Medicine. He completed pediatrics residency at Children’s Mercy Kansas City (CMKC), followed by a dual fellowship training in pediatric cardiology and pediatric clinical pharmacology. Dr. Wagner joined Children’s Mercy Kansas City faculty in 2013. He currently holds an academic rank of Associate Professor of Pediatrics at University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. He is the division director of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at CMKC. His early career research involved the impact of genetic variation and development on statin disposition during childhood. His series of pharmacogenomics driven pharmacokinetic studies involving statins has contributed to further understanding of inter-individual variability of statin response in the pediatric population. Dr. Wagner has served as a site-primary investigator for the Fontan Udenafil Exercise Longitudinal (FUEL) and Fontan Associated Liver Disease (FALD) trials sponsored by the Pediatric Heart Network (NHLBI). He is the primary investigator of the IMProving Drug dosing and Outcomes for single Ventricle patients with Fontan Associated Liver Disease (IMPROVE-FALD) research program. He holds the Matson Family Endowed Professorship in Cardiac Research at CMKC. He has received over 3 million dollars in external funding during his career from the American Heart Association, Thrasher Research Fund, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support his research and fellowship programs involving pediatric cardiovascular disease and pediatric clinical pharmacology. Dr. Wagner’s passion and research goals involve clinical integration of pharmacogenomics, pathophysiology, and precision medicine into routine cardiovascular care.
Sarah E. Wiehe, MD, MPH
Associate Dean for Community and Translational Research,
Director of the Division of Children's Health Services Research,
Jean and Jerry Bepko Scholar in Pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine.
Co-director of the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI).
Kash Yellepedi, PhD, RPh, DABCP
Associate Professor
Division of Clinical Pharmacology
University of Utah
Dr. Yellepeddi is an Associate Professor in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Pediatrics, and adjunct faculty with the Department of Molecular Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy University of Utah. He received his Pharmacy degree from Kakatiya University, India, and PhD in Medical Sciences from the School of Medicine, Texas A&M University Health Science Center. He is also accredited by the American Board of Clinical Pharmacology (ABCP) in applied clinical pharmacology.
Dr. Yellepeddi’s NIH-funded research focuses on physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling of therapeutics to inform first-in-human clinical studies. His research also focuses on PBPK modeling of drugs to treat critically ill children and patients with end-stage kidney disease. Dr. Yellepeddi is an editorial board member of the Scientific Reports journal and currently serves as a member of several NIH study sections on clinical translation of therapeutics.
Cindy Yeung, PhD, MSc
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
The Hospital for Sick Children
Dr. Cindy Yeung is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada. Dr. Yeung’s overarching research aim is use of pharmacokinetics (PK) to translate mathematical models to significantly advance understanding of drug PK in pediatrics. Her focus is on reducing adverse drug reactions among therapeutic orphan populations – populations often left out of the drug development process.
In Dr. Yeung’s Postdoctoral Fellowship with Dr. Tamorah Lewis, she currently focuses on advancing model-informed precision dosing using population PK (popPK) modeling for commonly used Neonatal Intensive Care Unit drugs. Prior to the postdoc, Dr. Yeung completed her PhD under the supervision of Dr. Andrea Edginton at the School of Pharmacy, University of Waterloo. Her research focused on physiologically based PK (PBPK) modeling to advance knowledge of breastfeeding infant exposure to maternal medications.
Dr. Yeung has achieved several awards including: the SickKids Restracomp Fellowship Award; the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGS)-Doctoral Award, with a Nelson Mandela honorary mention for placing #1/290 nationwide; and a CIHR CGS-Michael Smith Foreign Studies Supplements Award to collaborate with University of California San Diego.
Yifan Yu, BS, MS
Graduate Student
University of Buffalo
Yifan Yu is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is working in Dr. Robert Bies' Lab. He received his MS degree in Pharmacometrics at the University at Buffalo, and Bachelor of Science in Pharmaceutical Sciences at Capital Medical University. His current research focuses on application of pharmacometrics in HIV treatment and pre-exposure prophylaxis. He is also interested in using pharmacometric approaches to understand pharmacokinetics changes in pregnancy.
Songmao (Ben) Zheng, PhD, BS
Vice President of Clinical and Quantitative Pharmacology
Adagene
Songmao (Ben) Zheng is Vice President, Head of Clinical and Quantitative Pharmacology at Adagene Inc., a biotechnology company focusing on cancer therapeutics. Previously, he was Scientific Director/Group leader at Janssen R&D. He obtained his B.S. degree in Biological Sciences from Sichuan University, a Ph.D. degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Washington (UW), followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Florida (UF). He was an intern at Seattle Genetics and an ORISE Fellow at US FDA. Songmao authored ~30 peer-reviewed publications/book chapters, and co-invented ~10 Patents. He is Editorial Board member for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics and Clinical and Translational Science, and is Affiliate Associate Professor at the UW and Courtesy Adjunct Assistant Professor at the UF.