How to train future pharmacometricians: MoSAiC event Thursday Dec 10

Hi all, At the next MoSAiC event on Dec 10, we will be continuing the productive discussion from ACoP on "Where the Pharmacometricians of the Future will Come From". This excellent session, chaired by Bernd Meibohm and Hartmut Derendorf, ran out of time for discussion, but there's still clear interest in this important topic based on the discussions here on NMUsers. Since there are many directions this topic can take, we would like to focus the discussion specifically on "Collaborative training through virtual classrooms and shared web-based computing resources as a possible solution for Pharmacometrics education". After a brief background presentation by Marc Gastonguay of Metrum Institute, we will have a group discussion with facilitators from pharmacometrics training, education and job placement, including: Dick Brundage, Jeff Barrett, Marc Gastonguay, and Dave Cadieu. Discussion topics include: *Is a collaborative training program feasible? *What are the obstacles to cross-institution collaboration in degree granting programs? *Where will the funding come from? *Who will participate as faculty? as students? *Which disciplines should be included? Plan to include non-traditional sources of faculty and students? *Possible endorsement of a virtual curriculum by professional associations. We encourage you to go to our website ASAP (no later than tomorrow!) and register for this event. Just click on the link for your dinner selection and it will take you to Paypal. http://www.mosaicnj.org/ Hope to see you there! Take care, Marc Gastonguay, Stacey Tannenbaum, and Marc Pfister Note: if you cannot join us in person, consider joining virtually through a Web meeting! We will broadcast the audio and any slides over the url below. Users can listen-in to the audio over computer speakers or headphones and can contribute questions using the chat box. Participants please type name and enter as guest when prompted. http://metrum.na6.acrobat.com/acop2009/ "Kimko, Holly [PRDUS]" <HKimko Sent by: owner-nmusers 10/17/2009 10:37 PM To <nmusers cc Subject [NMusers] 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