Katherine Kay, Ph.D.

Senior Scientist, Manager Science Communications

Katherine joined Metrum in August 2018 as a Research Scientist. Katherine completed her Ph.D at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), University of Liverpool, UK. Her dissertation work involved developing and implementing pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK-PD) models of antimalarial drug action. In collaboration with the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), Katherine translated these models of drug action into their open-source simulation platform of malaria epidemiology and control, “OpenMalaria”. Katherine continued to collaborate with Swiss TPH as a post-doctoral research associate based at LSTM. Her work extended antimalarial PK-PD model methodology to investigate drug resistance and to optimize dosing regimens in malaria treatment, and contributed to ongoing insecticide resistance modeling.

In 2015, Katherine moved to the University at Buffalo, NY, USA, where she developed a physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model to characterize the physiological structure of the vaginal space and the absorption/distribution of vaginally administered drugs. The model specifically focused on the administration of antiretroviral compounds delivered via either a ring or film formulation and aimed at optimizing the probability of success of vaginally administered antiretroviral drugs.