Butler Lecture: "How Animal Health Research Can Benefit Human Therapeutics and Vice Versa"

Dr. Marilyn N. Martinez is an internationally recognized expert in veterinary pharmacokinetics.  She currently serves as a Senior Biomedical Research and Biomedical Product Assessment Service (SBRBPAS) Expert for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM).  As such, she is uniquely responsible for spearheading research efforts that support the development of novel approaches for evaluating veterinary dosage forms.  Her research areas include the development of in silico models to explore in vivo drug behavior in dogs (CRADA with SimcypTM), breed differences in GI physiology and product absorption, novel approaches for the bioequivalence evaluation of nonsystemically absorbed drugs (oral, opthalmic, and intramammary infusion), examination of potential mechanisms for evaluating antivirulence compounds intended for veterinary use, development of alternative study designs for evaluating product bioequivalence when full drug concentration/time profiles cannot be generated in a single subject (e.g., fish and other small animals), and the development of canine organoids to support the evaluation of drug permeability and metabolism as a function of location within the canine GI tract (research collaboration with UGa and 3D Health Solutions, Inc).

In addition to her scientific responsibilities at the FDA, Dr. Martinez chairs the veterinary ICH working group that is developing an international guideline for between-strength biowaivers, is a scientific advisor to the Veterinary Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Subcommittee of the Clinical Laboratory and Standards Institute (CLSI), chaired the Breakpoint Task Force which developed and is currently updating the CLSI guideline for incorporating exposure-effect relationships into the establishment of veterinary interpretive criteria (VET-02), and is an Associate Editor of the AAPS Journal.  

Among the honors received, Dr. Martinez was elected to AAPS Fellow in 2003, is a Fellow of the Controlled Release Society, and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.