13th Fisher/Shafer NONMEM Workshop with PLT Tools

Dear Colleagues: This is the first announcement for the 13th Fisher/Shafer NONMEM Workshop with PLT Tools, which will be held in San Francisco from Wednesday, March 9th, 2011 through Saturday, March 12th, 2011. You can find the course description and registration details at http://www.nonmemcourse.com www.nonmemcourse.com. This is an intermediate to advanced course on the use of the NONMEM System, closely integrated with the PLT Tools graphical user interface for the NONMEM System. Although the focus of the workshop is NONMEM, the more advanced diagnostics (e.g., visual predictive check, log-likelihood profiling, bootstrap analysis, jackknife validation, automated covariate searching, analysis and report automation) are presented in the context of PLT Tools because it automates the generation of these diagnostics. The workshop will be based on NONMEM VI, the standard version of NONMEM for most users. PLT Tools fully supports NONMEM 7. PLT Tools also supports NMQUAL, for users who have incorporated NMQUAL into their work environment. Our NONMEM Workshops are now in their 7th year. Dennis and I have spent the past five years developing PLT Tools. We introduced PLT Tools in Bethesda, Maryland in 2009, and have used the biannual workshops to introduce new features of PLT Tools. The feedback from the four courses since we introduced PLT Tools (9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th) is that workshop participants appreciated having access to the powerful features of the PLT Tools program. You can download the fully functional unlicensed version of PLT Tools from http://www.pltsoft.com www.pltsoft.com. Participants are encouraged to consider two introductory courses: . Introduction to R: The day before the workshop (Tuesday, March 8th), we teach two half-day courses: "Data Manipulation" (Tuesday morning) and "Statistics and Graphics (Tuesday afternoon). . Introduction to NONMEM: Participants who would like to brush up on NONMEM before starting the workshop on Wednesday are encouraged to attend this half-day session (Tuesday afternoon). Participants interested in additional training in PLT Tools can sign up for a half-day course devoted to PLT Tools we give on the afternoon of the last day (Saturday, March 12th). The course covers PLT Tools in far greater detail, focusing on a series of examples in which PLT Tools handles types of data analysis that are unwieldy if one attempts to work directly with NONMEM. Dennis and I hope to see you in March in San Francisco! Sincerely, Steven L. Shafer, MD Professor of Anesthesiology, Columbia University Adjunct Professor of Anesthesia, Stanford University Adjunct Professor of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, UCSF Editor-in-Chief, Anesthesia & Analgesia