This month we hear from Marina Venzon Antunes, young scientist and co-chair of the upcoming IATDMCT Congress in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. Marina shares about her work at the Feevale University where they are developing various assays and approaches using alternative sampling strategies, in the aim to facilitate access in a context where her lab is one of few reference centres for TDM in the country.

Marina Venzon Antunes

Professor of Biomedicine

Feevale University, Novo Hamburgo, Brazil

This month we highlight a piece in the September Compass by Jessica Ryan and Jenny Martin, written on behalf of the TDM in Oncology Committee. It is an overview on approaches to chemotherapy dosing in the obese child that brings together data from several reviews. Clearance of some drugs is affected while for others it appears not to be. Further, adiposity may influence tumour responsiveness to chemotherapy. However, the authors highlight the lack of data specific to this special population which is becoming more prevalent.

Jessica Ryan and Jennifer Martin

University of Newcastle and Hunter New England Health

Newcastle, Australia

Sophie Stocker shares about her research aimed at answering clinically relevant questions, often posed in the course of work by hospital staff. Look out for two oral presentations of Sophie's contributed work at the congress, 'A time and motion study of phlebotomists’ work' and 'Vancomycin: Improving prescribing practices', as well as a presentation in the Symposium ‘Emerging TDM technologies and obstacles to widespread use’ on Wednesday (see preliminary program).

Sophie Stocker

Senior Scientific Officer, Department of Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology, St Vincent’s Hospital

Conjoint Senior Lecturer, St Vincent’s Clinical School, University of NSW, Sydney, AU

It's a treat for me to hear from Andrew, who was one of my favourite lecturers during my Pharmacy studies at Sydney University, and certainly someone who contributed to my passion for research. Andrew shares about research work at the Faculty, where he is Dean, which combines in vitro, PKPB modelling and various types of clinical data to answer questions about drug interactions. Andrew will co-chair the ‘Translational science of antidoping – investigating pure performance’ symposium at the Congress on Tuesday (see preliminary program).

Andrew McLachlan

Head of School and Dean of Pharmacy

Sydney Pharmacy School

University of Sydney, AU