Graduate program alumnus wins Pearson Medal in recognition of novel research

Paul Malik (PhD 2021, PharmD 2016, BSc 2016) recognized for PhD thesis in the field of pediatric pharmacokinetics. Paul is on the right pictured with Lokesh Narsineni, a previous Pearson medal award winner.

Paul Malik is this year’s School of Pharmacy recipient of the Pearson Medal, an honour from the Faculty of Science which recognizes a Doctoral student from each Science department who presented creative and impactful research as part of their thesis.

“Dr. Malik’s research demonstrates his immense dedication to advancing science and his willingness to build collaborative partnerships with relevant experts across multiple fields,” says Andrea Edginton, Hallman Director and Malik’s supervisor.

For his doctoral research, Paul applied pharmacokinetic modelling – the process of mapping how drugs are absorbed, distributed, metabolized and excreted from the body – to learn about how better doses can be derived for monoclonal antibody drugs in children. As clinical pharmacologist working in the AbbVie-Calico collaboration, he now uses similar models to test dosing options for investigational drugs in simulated populations as part of planning for human-participant clinical trials.

Throughout his PhD, Paul published eleven papers. These drew from his thesis work and from collaborative research with faculty, graduate students and PharmD students he supervised. His PhD thesis contained six published and one unpublished manuscript and a chapter in the work was in the top ten cited publications of 2019 in the top journal of his field, the Journal of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics.

Paul is the third recipient from the School of Pharmacy. Previous winners include Alanna McEneny-King (Edginton Lab) and Lokesh Narsineni (Foldvari Lab).

 The medal was established in honour of Professor W.B. Pearson in recognition of his contribution to the University of Waterloo and Canada as a research scientist and teacher.