MEEX Speaker
ELLENS, Harma, PhD
Director, Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, King of Prussia, PA, USA
Biography
Dr Ellens received her PhD from the Department of Physiological Chemistry at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Her thesis project involved investigation of the utility of liposomes as carriers for sustained release of drugs in cancer chemotherapy. She then went on to do a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, investigating molecular mechanisms of membrane fusion. Subsequent to her postdoctoral fellowship she joined the Drug Delivery Department at SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) and later transferred to the Department of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics. She is currently Director of the Mechanism and Extrapolation Technologies (MET) group in the DMPK Department at GlaxoSmithKline, Philadelphia. The MET group performs in vitro studies to investigate mechanisms of absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination of drug candidates to assess the risk, and explain the mechanisms, of clinical drug-drug interactions. She has published over 50 papers in refereed journals, including 8 papers on Pgp transport kinetics. She also served as outside reader on several PhD committees at Drexel University.
