Brown biomedical engineering Ph.D. candidate Nazanin Ahmadi was awarded second place in the Igniting Ideas: ASCPT Student & Trainee Research Pitch Competition, hosted by the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (ASCPT). ASCPT is the largest scientific and professional organization in the field, with over 3,000 members working to advance clinical pharmacology and translational science for the benefit of patients and society.
Ahmadi presented her pioneering work titled “Physics-Informed Networks for Systems Pharmacology,” showcasing the transformative role of scientific machine learning (SciML) in quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP). As the first to introduce Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) — originally developed by her adviser, Professor George Karniadakis — to the pharmacometrics and QSP communities, Ahmadi’s research has opened new frontiers in mechanistically-informed AI modeling for drug development.
“Although AI is still emerging in this field, I’m grateful to the judges for recognizing the importance of scientific machine learning in quantitative systems pharmacology,” said Ahmadi. “It was a fantastic experience to share my vision and receive insightful feedback from leaders in the field.”
Ahmadi’s innovative modeling work continues to bridge mathematical rigor with real-world clinical applications — pushing forward the next generation of model-informed precision medicine.