Dear Colleagues,   

 

It is with great sadness that I share the news that Dr. Alan Forrest has passed away this weekend.  Alan was a mentor, colleague and friend to many in SIDP.  Brian Tsuji and others prepared the following summary of Alan’s career which I share with permission: 

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.  

Those wishing may make donations to the Eshelman School of Pharmacy https://pharmacy.unc.edu/give or to the National Kidney Foundation at www.kidney.org/support.  A family guestbook is available at www.amherstmemorialchapel.com

Libby Dodds Ashley

President, SIDP