The Faculty of Science and the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research are looking for a:Postdoc – Translational Pharmacology in antibiotic regimen developmentVacancynumber: 14993
The Division of Systems Pharmacology and Pharmacy (SPP) of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) aims to develop quantitative precision medicine approaches to characterize and predict variation in treatment response and enhance translational drug development strategies. Across the seven current principal investigator-led research groups of our division, the main overarching research themes are focused on (i) application of quantitative modeling/pharmacometrics in clinical pharmacology to develop optimized treatment strategies, and (ii) the development and application of systems approaches to enhance translational drug development strategies.
Our ambition is to impact development of personalized treatment strategies and innovative translational drug development through integration with clinical data, including patient data. We develop new methodological advances at the interface of quantitative systems- and clinical pharmacology/pharmacometrics and other disciplines such as innovative experimental disease models, emerging biomarker technologies, state-of-the art biophysical tools, and advanced statistical/ ML/ AI-approaches.From the education perspective, our division is involved in the Bachelor/Master program of Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences. In addition, our division is closely involved in the Master program of Pharmacy, which is jointly organized with the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC). For more information about our division, please visit our website.
Project description
Tuberculosis (TB) causes 1.5 million deaths yearly. Current treatment consists of regimens of 2-4 antibiotics for 4-6 months, or longer in case of resistant TB. The preclinical pipeline of new antibiotics is promising, but prioritizing development of the regimens with the highest potential for therapeutic success is challenging. Development of innovative drug combinations should be accelerated with the use of translational pharmacological models. The group Translational Immuno-Pharmacology of Dr. Rob van Wijk is part of a large consortium comprised of several excellent experimental and computational research groups as well as industry, and governmental and non-governmental partners, is addressing the translational challenges in developing better regimens against TB.
The successful candidate will develop computational models incorporating pharmacokinetics- pharmacodynamic and/or systems (immuno)pharmacology to quantify in vitro and in vivo antibiotic drug effects for monotherapy and in combination regimens, and predict their efficacy in patients. Different modelling techniques such as population and semi-mechanistic models, logistic regression and AI/mL, and/or systems (immuno)pharmacology will be employed. This postdoctoral position is characterized by close collaboration with both computational and experimental scientists within this international consortium, within the spirit of Team Science.