Clinical Pharmacology Fellowship

Program Directors

Leadership from their respective instituions:

Thomas Jefferson University

Dr. Waldman received his PhD in Anatomy, from Thomas Jefferson University in ‘80. Subsequently, he pursued a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical pharmacology under the supervision of the Nobel Laureate Ferid Murad, MD, PhD at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (‘79-‘81) and Stanford University, Palo Alto (‘81-‘83). In ‘83, he completed a fellowship program in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at Stanford University. He obtained his MD in ‘87 and completed his training in Internal Medicine in ‘90 at Stanford University. In ‘90, he joined the faculty of Thomas Jefferson University where he is the Samuel MV Hamilton Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. Dr. Waldman has received numerous honors and awards including the Henry Elliott (2010) and Rawls Palmer Progress in Medicine (2012) Awards from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association Foundation Award in Excellence in Clinical Pharmacology (2011), and the George Kolle Award from the Mid-Atlantic Pharmacology Society (2103). He has had significant leadership roles in pharmacology professional societies, President of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, (’01-‘02), an elected Regent of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (’99-’04), a member of the American Board of Clinical Pharmacology (’99-’04), and most recently Chair of the Scientific Program Committee for the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (2011-present). He is a Fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (FCP) and the American Heart Association (FAHA). He is the Editor-In-Chief of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the top research journal in pharmacology. Also, he is the Founder of the journals Biomarkers In Medicine, and Clinical and Translational Science. Moreover, he is Co-Editor of the textbook Pharmacology And Therapeutics: Principles To Practice (2009). Dr. Waldman’s research activities focus on human clinical pharmacology and drug development, molecular mechanisms underlying tissue organization and tumorigenesis, and novel approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)

Kevin Downes, MD, is an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), a core faculty member of the Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness (CPCE), a faculty member core of the Center for Clinical Pharmacology, and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Downes is the Clinical Director of the Solid Organ Transplant ID program at CHOP and the Vice Chair of the Transplant ID Research Subcommittee of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. Dr. Downes attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. He then completed a residency in Pediatrics and fellowships in Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Pediatric Clinical and Developmental Pharmacology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He joined CHOP in 2015, where he attends on both the General and Immune Compromised Infectious Diseases services. Dr. Downes’ research focuses on antimicrobial pharmacokinetics/ pharmacodynamics (PK/PD), pharmacometrics, and antibiotic-associated drug toxicities in children. Dr. Downes has particular interests in individualized dose optimization of antimicrobials in vulnerable pediatric patients, including critically ill and immunocompromised children, as well as examining the roles of biomarkers in the management of children with infectious diseases. He is also interested in the use of microsampling for therapeutic drug monitoring and clinical pharmacology studies. He is the recipient of a K23 Career Development Award from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health that is investigating approaches to optimize vancomycin therapy in critically ill children and is also involved in the conduct of several clinical trials and observational studies at CHOP.