Dear Colleagues, 

It is with great sadness that I share, on behalf of ISAP, the news that Dr. Alan Forrest has passed away yesterday. Alan was a wonderful friend, mentor, colleague and a true inspiration to our community and beyond.  He was a giant in the field of antimicrobial pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and toxicodynamics (PK/PD/TD) as a researcher and educator for over 37 years. Alan started his career at the University of Southern California in Dr. Roger Jelliffe’s Laboratory and held a number of prestigious faculty positions at USC, the University of Maryland and the University at Buffalo. He served most recently as a Clinical Professor and Director of the Center for Pharmacometrics at the University of North Carolina. He also worked as the Senior Director of Pharmacometrics at the Institute for Clinical Pharmacodynamics and was an expert adviser to the Food and Drug Administration and the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Alan made immeasurable contributions to the field of antimicrobial pharmacometrics. He was the leading scientist in the world on adaptive feedback control and individualizing therapy using PK/PD/TD systems analysis. He brought these advanced dosing algorithms all the way to clinical application for many of the antibiotics we use today. His pivotal paper on ciprofloxacin pharmacodynamics revolutionized antimicrobial drug development and has been cited >1,000 times. As a result of his work, exposure response analyses for antimicrobials have become standard practice in translational drug development.

Alan had a tireless work ethic and was extremely driven. Although his days typically started at 7am and he mostly worked 7 days a week, he was always so generous with his time for others. He was a selfless and extremely dedicated mentor and friend to over 100 trainees all over the world. Alan was also a brilliant presenter and explained complex mathematical models with elegance. In 2016, he was honored with the Lewis B. Sheiner Lecture Award at the American Conference on Pharmacometrics. Throughout his esteemed career Alan always maintained his focus in translating his research into clinical practice to improve the care of patients.

He will be dearly missed by all of us.  

Brian Tsuji, President
on behalf of the International Society of Anti-Infective Pharmacology (ISAP)

PK/PD studies in CMI - the journal of ESCMID

Clinical Microbiology and Infection (CMI), the official journal of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) explicitly welcomes PK/PD articles and highlights the importance of PK/PD as a key research field to tackle antibiotic resistance. Thereby the focus of CMI spans a wide range of PK/PD aspects, from first-in-human PK of novel drug entities, target-site PK, combinations, mechanism-based PK/PD modelling to PK/PD in special patient populations.

Read more on PK/PD in CMI in an Editorial written by William Couet, the chair of ISAP's partner organization EPASG.

ISAP activities around ECCMID 2018 in Madrid

ECCMID 2018 begins 21 April and concludes at 3pm on 24 April. Members of ISAP Council will meet during the ECCMID conference. ISAP has a number of activities for all members during and immediately following ECCMID. ISAP members are welcome and encouraged to attend the following activities.

Attendance at the General Meeting, the Scientific Meeting and the Social Reception is free for all ISAP members.  

Monday 23 April: Young Scientist Night Out in Madrid

An opportunity for young ISAP investigators to get to know each other and enjoy an evening in amazing Madrid. Interested parties are invited to meet around 8pm at the Del Diego Cocktail Bar located at Calle de la Reina, 12, 28009 Madrid, Spain. Please RSVP to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by Sunday April 22nd to provide a tentative headcount for the event and don’t forget to follow @ISAP_org on Twitter for relevant updates from ISAP. 

Tuesday 24 April: General Meeting of ISAP

4:30 – 5:15pm at Hotel Paseo del Arte (Atocha 123, Madrid, Spain)

Please attend this meeting to receive an update on the business and other activities of ISAP, and participate in discussion. Included will be the announcement of the awarding of Honorary Life Membership of ISAP to one of its outstanding members. Hotel Paseo del Arte is about 15 – 30 min by taxi from the ECCMID conference venue.

Tuesday 24 April: Scientific Meeting of ISAP

5:15 – 6:45pm at Hotel Paseo del Arte (Atocha 123, Madrid, Spain; see venue details above)

This meeting, which is being held in conjunction with EPASG, is in keeping with the ISAP tradition of providing a forum for Young Investigators to present their research. Abstract submissions from Young Investigators working in any anti-infective area are welcome. Format abstracts as for ECCMID and email them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the title “ISAP Abstract Submission” by March 9th, 2018 (! prolonged to March 23 2018 !) to receive full consideration. Please indicate the full name of the presenting author if it is not clear from the author block. All ISAP members are encouraged to attend to support the Young Investigators.    

Tuesday 24 April: Social Reception

7:00 pm at Hotel Paseo del Arte (Atocha 123, Madrid, Spain; see venue and registration details above)

The reception is sponsored by ISAP in collaboration with the 3rd International Conference on Polymyxins, EPASG and the Spanish Infectious Diseases Society. All ISAP members are invited for light appetizers and refreshments.

Wednesday - Thursday, 25 - 26 April: 3rd International Conference on Polymyxins

This conference is being held at Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre, Avenida de Córdoba s/n, 28041 Madrid, Spain. The conference is in collaboration with ISAP so we are very keen to invite all of our members to attend. You may register here. Young and senior ISAP investigators are encouraged to submit abstracts for polymyxin-related research as there will be an oral presentation session, in a collaboration of ISAP and EPASG, as part of the conference program. A call for abstracts has been sent out and abstracts are due by January 31st.  We welcome abstracts from all areas related to the polymyxins.

 

PK/PD grant opportunity
The European PK/PD study group announced a new study grant to foster collaboration across laboratories and help mentoring of young investigators who may wish to spend some time as an observer in a laboratory that can provide additional education/training that is not available locally. The grants are available up to Euro 1000 and applications are invited for 2015-16 with a deadline of October 31st. For more information please contact Jason Roberts (j.roberts2(at)uq.edu.au).