Curriculum vitae

Focus of research

[Forschungslinie 2]: Pharmacometric data analysis

“Optimisation of antiinfective therapies using pharmacometric models for plasma and different target-sites (working title)”

Despite the broad range of today’s therapeutic opportunities, the adequate treatment of infectious diseases with antiinfective drugs remains a challenging task. Although during the past decades, a number of potent new antiinfective drugs have been developed and they are frequently used, their usage still needs optimisation. For an effective and safe antiinfective therapy, the choice of the right drug against the right pathogen is only one of many contributing factors, such as the appropriate dosing regimen or individual patient characteristics. More and more, pharmacogenomic aspects, i.e. individual genetic factors such as the status of drug-metabolising enzymes and their influence on drug concentrations and responses, are also considered. In addition, effective drug concentrations at the target-site of an infection are essential, e.g. in the interstitial space fluid of a tissue, but should not exceed maximum tolerated concentrations. To determine the concentrations of a drug at the target-site, the minimally invasive technique of microdialysis is often used to continuously sample the unbound concentration of the respective drug from the interstitial space fluid.

The objectives of my PhD project include the analysis of data from clinical trials to develop pharmacometric models integrating samples obtained from diverse matrices, such as plasma and different target-sites. For this purpose, the nonlinear mixed-effects modelling approach is applied to describe the concentration-time profiles (pharmacokinetics) in the study population and to quantify the variability between and within the individuals (inter- and intra-individual variability). Additionally, the identification of factors (covariates) contributing to this variability, e.g. CYP enzyme polymorphisms, shall improve our understanding of underlying mechanisms and enable more individualised therapy options. Furthermore, these population pharmacokinetic models can be linked to potential desired outcomes (pharmacodynamics), e.g. by assessing the attainment of pathogen-specific therapy targets. In a next step, simulations with the developed models shall help to evaluate the currently used dosing regimens and, if needed, develop improved dosing strategies to ultimately contribute to an optimised usage of antiinfectives.