St Vincent's Scientists lead the way in Therapeutic Drug Monitoring You are here:HomeNewsroomNews St Vincent's Scientists lead the way in Therapeutic Drug Monitoring 15 Dec 2021 Earlier this year, some of St Vincent’s leading scientists led the inaugural Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) workshop, firmly placing St Vincent’s on the international TDM stage. Professor Debbie Marriott, Dr Jana Stojanova, Dr Sophie Stocker, Dr Jane Carland and Dr Danijela Kocic (pictured), led the event held under the auspices of the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Toxicology, an international society with strong leadership from numerous St Vincent’s staff. The event aimed to raise awareness and build capacity in therapeutic drug monitoring – the measurement of drug concentrations in the blood enabling personalised dosing amongst more than 1000 international peers. St Vincent’s has a long and proud tradition of TDM that commenced in the late 1980’s when it was recognised that patients with HIV were dying from fungal infection, despite anti-fungal treatment with fluconazole. At the time SydPath Scientist, Dr John Ray was at the forefront of treatment and established an assay to facilitate optimisation of therapy. Subsequently, TDM was introduced for the anti-retroviral drugs. More recently, a TDM service has been established here on campus for several antibiotics, especially important in the treatment of critically ill patients where the pathophysiology makes prediction of accurate dosing very difficult. In terms of precision medicine, the Antimicrobial TDM team provide an extensive range of drug assays, with rapid turnaround time, to greatly enhance patient care. Congratulations to all involved.