Author: [AUTHOR] Published on 1/1/2020 12:00:00 AM

Stacey Tannenbaum, PhD, Senior Director, Pharmacometrics, Astellas Pharma, Northbrook, IL

In the early 2000s, Dr. Tannenbaum joined ASCPT when she was working on her postdoctoral fellowship with Carl Peck, MD, at the Center for Drug Development Science and Georgetown University Medical Center. During that initial membership she also attended a number of Annual Meetings. She took a brief hiatus in her membership while she was focusing her efforts on the development of the American Conference on Pharmacometrics (ACoP), now known as the International Society of Pharmacometrics (ISoP). In 2017, she came back to ASCPT as a dual member of ASCPT and ISoP and she is very glad to be back!

Since her return to ASCPT, Dr. Tannenbaum has taken advantage of several of the webinars, both live and recorded from the Online Library. She appreciates the access to the outstanding science highlighted in the Society's journal family. Dr. Tannenbaum enjoys the variety of events and activities at the Annual Meeting, especially the opportunity to catch up with old friends and colleagues. She explains that the Annual Meeting “includes a great mix of topics ranging from clinical applications to digital health to technical modeling methods, fun and novel sessions like the MIDD Gran Prix competition in 2018 and the MIDD Point‐Counterpoint session was a lot of fun to participate in, and I loved the humor and creativity that everyone brought to the session.” She really appreciated the friendly competition between the speakers in the program, especially as a participant. The whole experience taught her a lesson that she uses in her day job: “to be successful, model less, and communicate more!”

Dr. Tannenbaum credits her professional volunteer activities that she began doing as a student and a postdoc with her current career success. She believes that these early experiences provided a great stepping stone for building leadership credibility and visibility. She encourages young scientists “even if you are asked to contribute to a committee that doesn't match your passion, put your all into it anyway – if you show yourself to be a committed and enthusiastic volunteer, you'll be given more opportunities in the future.” She urges these new researchers not to wait to be asked – step up and ask to help, “no one will know that you want to volunteer if you don't communicate that.” She also advises taking advantage of networking and mentoring opportunities, that “you never know how one or more of these connections will affect your future.” She explains that in her own career she met Peter Bonate, PhD, when she was a graduate student. Following that meeting, he recruited Dr. Tannenbaum into her original professional leadership opportunities. Over the years they have participated together in many scientific sessions and now she works for him at Astellas where she continues to learn from him every day.

The most important role of Pharmacometrics is to set the dosing regimen; for healthy volunteers or for patients, for clinical trials or the label. Population pharmacokinetic (and pharmacodynamic) modeling allows scientists to not only describe the PK/PD in a population but also to understand the sources of variability in that population. By quantifying the variability, researchers can identify special populations for which doses need to be modified so that all patients receive safe and effective exposure to the medication.

In July, Dr. Tannenbaum participated in the Quantitative Pharmacology Network webinar: “Changing Minds from ‘All Models are Wrong’ to ‘Some are Useful.’” The webinar focused on communication and strategic skills needed to help with managing skeptics toward modeling and simulation and ultimately to make a real impact on drug development decision making. ASCPT members can view the recording in the Online Library on www.ascpt.org.

Dr. Tannenbaum has been an ASCPT member since 2017.