New Investigators Session Table Leaders

Armina Abbasi received her Ph.D. in the field of chemistry of biological systems from the Washington State University in 2020 and her graduate work was focused on the numerical modeling of the atypical pharmacokinetics of aldehyde oxidase as well as the time-depended inhibition (TDI) of cytochrome P450 family of enzymes. She has a strong background in the ADME characterization of small molecule therapeutics and since joining Amgen, she has expanded her expertise to siRNA therapeutics and PROTACs. Dr. Abbasi joined the pharmacokinetics and drug metabolism (PKDM) department at Amgen Inc. as a scientist in 2021 where she serves as the associate project team representative and the ADME and drug-drug interactions expert on various programs. She is currently spearheading the incorporation of a more routine use of TDI modeling, machine learning and data consolidation and analysis tools across programs within the PKDM department.

Katrina Claw is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. She received her Ph.D. in genome sciences from the University of Washington and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington as well. As an Assistant Professor, she studies pharmacogenomic variation with Indigenous tribes and communities as well as the ethical, cultural, and social implications of genomic research in these same communities. Dr. Claw was awarded the Genomic Innovator Award from NHGRI in 2020 for her work with Indigenous communities.

Marie Croft is Scientific Director, Radiolabeled Sciences at Pharmaron. She received her Ph.D. in ‘Applications of human microdosing with accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS)’ from the University of York in 2013. As Scientific Director, she contributes to the design, review and execution of Phase I 14C-labeled (ADME and IVPK) clinical studies and analytical phases utilizing AMS. She is responsible for the scientific oversight of the analytical team based at Germantown MD, US. Throughout her 17-year career, she has contributed to the development of many compounds supported by AMS and now approved by the FDA and has co-authored 11 scientific publications and a book chapter in this field.

Dr. Li Di has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry including Pfizer, Wyeth and Syntex. She is currently a research fellow at Pfizer Worldwide Research and Development, Groton, CT. Her research interests include the areas of drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, drug-drug interactions, absorption, transporters, blood–brain barrier and PBPK modeling and simulation. She has over 170 publications including two books and presented over 100 invited lectures. She is a recipient of the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award, the New Jersey Association for Biomedical Research Outstanding Woman in Science Award, the Wyeth President’s Award and Peer Award for Excellence.

Nina Isoherranen is a Professor and Chair at the Department of Pharmaceutics, UW and Milo Gibaldi Endowed Chair of Pharmaceutics. She her B.S. and M.S. in Analytical Chemistry from the Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, Finland and her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the School of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. She was a Postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Pharmaceutics, University of Washington. Dr Isoherranen’s main research interests relate to vitamin A disposition, pharmacokinetic modeling and drug-drug interactions. Her NIH funded research incudes studies of the role of CYP26 and ALDH1A enzymes in Vitamin A homeostasis and characterization of how drug and vitamin metabolism change during pregnancy. She has also active research ongoing in the area of pharmacokinetic modeling and PBPK model development.

Dr Isoherranen has held leadership positions in professional societies including being councilor of American Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASPET) and a member of ASPET and FASEB science policy committees. She was a member of the ISSX Membership Affairs committee 2015 -2020 and is a member of ISSX council since 2019. At present she is an Associate Editor of Drug Metabolism and Disposition, and Pharmacology & Therapeutics. She is also a member and chair (2020-2022) of the XNDA study section for NIH.

Dr Isoherranen has received multiple young investigator and early career awards. Most recently she was the recipient of the Drug Metabolism Division Early Career Achievement Award by ASPET in 2013 and the ISSX North American New Investigator award in honor of James R Gillette in 2014.

Deanna Kroetz is Professor and Chair of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences and the Jere E. Goyan Presidential Chair for the Advancement of Pharmacy in the School of Pharmacy at the University of California San Francisco. She received her B.S. degree in Pharmacy from Ohio State University and her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from the University of Washington, under the mentorship of Dr. René Levy. Dr. Kroetz was a PRAT Fellow in the Laboratory of Molecular Carcinogenesis at the National Cancer Institute under the mentorship of Dr. Frank Gonzalez before joining the faculty at the University of California San Francisco. She has received numerous awards, including the AAPS New Investigator Award in Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics and Drug Metabolism, the Josephine Failer Award from the Ohio State University Alumni Association, the Leon Goldberg Young Investigator Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Distinguished Alumna Award for Excellence in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research from the University of Washington School of Pharmacy. Her research interests are focused on understanding the mechanisms underlying interindividual variation in drug response and toxicity. Current research efforts include clinical and functional genomics studies of chemotherapy-induced toxicity and structure-function studies of ABC transporters. Teaching responsibilities include pharmacokinetics to professional pharmacy students and drug metabolism and transport to graduate students in the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics graduate program. Dr. Kroetz served as the Director of the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics Graduate Program from 2010 – 2019. She is currently the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Clinical and Translational Science.

Scott Obach is Vice President of Scientific Research in the Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics, and Drug Metabolism Department at Pfizer in Groton, CT. He joined the company ion 1992. His main role in Pfizer’s early research is to aid medicinal chemists in designing new drugs that will have good exposure in the body, and his role in the later phase of drug development is to characterize how the body metabolizes and excretes individual drug candidates. His research interests include application of in vitro approaches to study drug metabolism, prediction of human pharmacokinetics and drug interactions, mechanisms of chemical reactions of drug metabolism, and late stage lead diversification using enzymatic and chemical approaches. Scott earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Brandeis University in 1990, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship in 1990-1992 at the New York State Department of Health Research Laboratories. He is an author or coauthor on over 200 research publications and on the editorial boards of Drug Metabolism and Disposition and Xenobiotica.

Dr. Emily Scott the F. F. Blicke Professor at the University of Michigan. From an undergraduate degree in marine biology, to a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Rice University, and through her postdoctoral fellowship in Pharmacology and Toxicology at University of Texas Medical Branch the theme has been heme proteins. Previously at the University of Kansas and now at the University of Michigan, Dr. Scott’s research focus has been the structure/function relationships of human cytochrome P450 enzymes. The Scott lab uses structural biology and biochemical techniques to understand both drug metabolism and how to target specific P450 enzymes in disease pathways. Her laboratory is best known for X-ray structures of human P450 enzymes involved in xenobiotic metabolism and steroidogenesis. Notable awards include the ISSX North American New Investigator Award and the Early Career Achievement Award from the Drug Metabolism Division of The American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Dr. Rheem Totah is Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Washington. She received her PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, and was a Plein Fellow for two years in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Washington before joining the faculty as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Totah’s leads an active research program funded by NIH and industry. Her research focuses on extrahepatic biotransformation, drug induced cardiotoxicity and the role of thiol methyl transferases in drug metabolism and cell function. She has over 70 peer reviewed publications, invited reviews and book chapters. She currently serves on several journal editorial and NIH study sections and regularly presents her work at national and international meetings.

Dr. Xinning Yang is working in Guidance & Policy team (GPT) under the Office of Clinical Pharmacology (OCP), CDER of FDA. He received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical science from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. As a Policy Lead, his current primary focus is guidance and policy development and implementation in areas of drug metabolism, transporters, and drug-drug interactions. He is the Co-Chair of Transporter Focus Group of ISSX, a members of Regulatory Affairs committee of ISSX, Co-vice chair of the Membrane Transporter (MT) community of the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT), and a member of International Transporter Consortium (ITC) committee. He is participating in the International Council Harmonization (ICH) M12 DDI guidance global harmonization working group and serves as the Deputy Topic Lead of FDA.