RE: post-ACoP: How to train future pharmacometricians
Dear all,
I appreciate the calls, private emails and postings on this topic. I am
surely not a lonely dreamer - specially with internet. :-) Thank
you.
I see the points discussed by Rob, Steve and three others (private
communications) as academicians. Some relevant topics are also discussed
very nicely in the paper titled: Pharmacometrics: A Multidisciplinary
Field to Facilitate Critical Thinking in Drug Development and
Translational Research Settings - Barrett et al. (Clin Pharmacol
2008;48:632-649).
While reading those messages, I had to think about the definition of
"pharmacometrician" again. To me, it means a person who analyzes
drug-related data ("pharma") in a quantitative way ("metric") -
especially those who uses subjects of quantitative pharmacology,
pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, disease progress model and protocol
adherence model with a focus on populations and variability via
stochastic simulations, applicable in drug development.
In my previous posting, my "pharmacometrician" was partially those who
are in specific fields of pharmacology (=drug exposure effect), because
I was thinking of the students from the local Pharmacy school whose
thesis projects are cell biology, transporters, etc. Some of them will
find jobs in pharmaceutical industry.
The target is anybody who wants to know more about Pharmacometrics at
his/her position without quitting the current job as a student or an
employee to spend a certain period of time to get a certificate or a
diploma. I am not sure how many students or employees in small pharma
companies can afford such a nice training opportunity in terms of money
and time. They have to start small. Later when they see a strong
necessity, they may go for the opportunity.
Fortunately, I was contacted by a person who had similar experiences as
mine in a local university. We need some good ideas on how to fill up
this niche. It may take a long time, but as he said, "I am stubborn and
I want to do something <about quantitative pharmacology/pharmacometrics
training>."
Thanks,
Holly
Quoted reply history
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of Kimko, Holly [PRDUS]
Sent: 12 October 2009 18:19
To: [email protected]
Subject: [NMusers] post-ACoP: How to train future pharmacometricians
Hello:
I attended the ACoP last week, where we talked about how to train future
pharmacometricians - http://www.go-acop.org/acop2009/program
Here is my thought I could not share due to lack of time during the
meeting.
Local scientists in NJ area teach PK, PD and some basic M&S at a
Pharmacy school for undergraduate and graduate students. Last year when
I taught population analysis for 4 hours straight (with 10 minutes of
bio-break) to the graduate students, they clearly showed their interest
to learn, and we ended up going over the teaching material 1 more hour
without any complaint from about 15 students. Of course, I emphasized
the usefulness of the knowledge in getting an industry job at the
beginning of the lecture.
We also have tried to form a full M&S graduate course at the school, but
it has been difficult because of the fact that most of the faculties at
the school have more pharmacology / pharmacogenomics oriented research
interests, hence less interest in pharmacometrics: students need
professors who can guide M&S exercises at school, not just adjunct
professors who visits now and then....
So...
I wonder if we can extend this NJ example to a Global University where
Pharmacometrics - at least, concept - can be taught free of charge to
students all over the world by pharmacometricians in industry, academia
and regulatory agencies. Later, we may further consider to have a
one-to-one mentoring program. AAPS supports webinars on many interesting
topics. Maybe ACoP can support pharmacometrics webinar? Maybe National
Science Foundation? Or, Bill Gates? :-)
Best wishes,
Holly Huicy Kimko
P.S.: Let's dream first... a good one...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_km0u64OLng