The research laboratory of Dr. Rada Savic in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is engaged in groundbreaking drug development projects for infectious diseases including tuberculosis, HIV, and malaria, as well as pain management and autoimmune disease with a focus on identifying optimal treatment regimens. We develop and apply disease models, perform pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic evaluations, build physiology-based pharmacokinetic models, conduct exposure-response analyses, and utilize model-based simulations with the ultimate goal to optimize treatment in adult and pediatric patient populations. While pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic concepts and advanced quantitative clinical pharmacology principles have been integrated into the clinical development of compounds across many therapeutic areas, human dose prediction and early clinical evaluation of the efficacy and safety of candidate molecules for infectious diseases remains empirical. Innovative approaches are required to enable effective translation of nonclinical data, providing insight into the selection of rational combinations and optimized clinical trial designs.

The Savic Lab is seeking researchers and scholars of exceptional promise for postdoctoral fellow positions in interdisciplinary research with expertise in the methods and theory of statistics, data science, applied mathematics AND pharmacometrics or related fields (eg pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, quantitative pharmacology, systemic pharmacology, computational biology).  As a part of the Savic lab, you will develop innovative models that integrate new data and/or new experiments, implement new mathematical and statistical techniques and approaches, and contribute to establishing pharmacometric capabilities and infrastructure (e.g. lead the development of tools for recurrent and consistent analysis, develop guidance documents and standards of practice). In addition to these roles, the postdoctoral fellow will have opportunities to teach and supervise graduate students, write scientific papers, present research findings at international conferences, and write and submit grant applications.

Pharmacometrics is an emerging discipline that uses mathematical and statistical tools to quantify drug, disease, and trial information to aid efficient drug development and regulatory decisions. It designs and applies mathematical models to describe the relationship between drug exposure (pharmacokinetics) and response (pharmacodynamics) for both desired and undesired effects and aims to include in such models, the effects of individual patient characteristics with the ultimate goal to give the right drug at the right dose to the right patient at the right time. Dr. Savic’s Pharmacometrics Team has established translational and clinical drug development expertise across many disease areas and is active internationally enjoying impactful collaborations and exchange programs with the most renowned clinical trial networks and modelling groups worldwide.