2027 Future Talent Program - Translational Modeling Group - Intern

About the role

The Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics, Metabolism, and Bioanalytics (PDMB) - Translational Modeling Group is seeking a highly motivated Intern to join our group to advance translational science. This internship will develop a foundational juvenile animal Physiological Based Pharmacokinetics (PBPK) model with AI-enabled workflow capabilities to inform exposure-based dose selection and support interpretation and design of juvenile toxicity studies. The Intern will have an opportunity to build new tools and knowledge assets for drug discovery. This internship provides an opportunity to work alongside scientists supporting preclinical and clinical development programs while gaining experience in MIDD and safety assessment. This is a full-time internship for up to 12 consecutive weeks beginning in May or June of 2027.

Project overview

Juvenile animal toxicity studies are frequently required to support pediatric drug development. However, selection of appropriate doses in juvenile animals can be challenging because physiological maturation, enzyme and transporter ontogeny, and developmental changes may significantly alter drug exposure compared with adults. Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling offers a mechanistic framework to take these characteristics into account to predict juvenile animal exposures and inform juvenile toxicology study design. The project will expose the Intern to modern Model-Informed Drug Development (MIDD) methodologies while developing computational, scientific communication, and data-analysis skills relevant to pharmaceutical research. This internship will systematically assemble available knowledge and translate it into a usable modeling framework, creating a foundational juvenile PBPK model. This internship will be coached by both a Toxicokinetics (TK) scientist and PBPK modeling scientist, to ensure the success of this internship.

Responsibilities

• Build juvenile animal PBPK model
• Develop reusable AI-enabled knowledge-generation workflows
• Generate durable resources that support future juvenile toxicity studies
• Prepare technical summaries and presentations of project progress
• Present project outcomes at the end-of-summer intern symposium

Required education

Currently pursuing Master's, or Ph.D. degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacology, Toxicology, Biomedical Engineering, Systems Biology, Computational Biology, Quantitative Biology, or a related discipline.

Required skills

• Experience in any of the following: PBPK modeling, mechanistic modeling, systems pharmacology, mathematical modeling and simulation
• Ability to conduct comprehensive literature searches, extract quantitative parameters from publications, summarize scientific findings clearly, analyze and interpret data with graph generation as needed
• Available to work full-time for up to (12) consecutive weeks beginning in May or June of 2027

Preferred skills

• Experience in building PBPK models
• Experience with using any following tools: Simcyp, GastroPlus, PK-Sim, MATLAB, R, etc.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Effective verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to work independently and within a team environment

Learning opportunities

The Intern will gain exposure to:

• Use of PBPK software and/or modeling platforms
• Juvenile animal PBPK modeling
• Model calibration, sensitivity analysis, and evaluation
• Applying AI tools to scientific research
• Knowledge of Safety Assessment

Expected deliverables

• A proof-of-concept juvenile PBPK model incorporating proprietary compound information to evaluate dose selection strategies
• Completion of a scientific review document describing key considerations for juvenile toxicity study dose selection using publicly available literature resources
• Oral presentation describing project objectives, methodology, results, and recommendations

Pay

The salary range for this role is $39,108 through $111,111.