Violeta Balbas, pharmacist, PhD in Pharmacy and former student of the Master's Degree of research, development, and Medication Innovation (MIDI) of the School of Pharmacy and Nutrition of the University of Navarra has been chosen as the featured author in training of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics for the March 2020 issue. This is a recognized American journal in the field of Pharmacology, which highlights the work of this researcher in pharmacometrics and systems pharmacology. 

"It is a great joy, since it implies recognition of the arduous work of research: compiling the results of dozens of studies to combine them in a single mathematical model with which to test hypotheses "in silico", i.e., through computer simulations. This is very gratifying," says Balbás.

During the development of her doctoral thesis , in which this work is framed, directed by Dr. Iñaki Fernández Trocóniz, Violeta Balbás has characterized in a mechanistic way two complex diseases: Inflammatory Bowel Disease and complicated infection of the genito-urinary tract in pediatric patients. "To this day, similar work is being developed in the Departments of clinical pharmacology in the pharmaceutical industry. However, in most cases, such work cannot be published beyond the communications that take place in oral format or poster at international congresses (such as the Population Approach Group in Europe (PAGE) or the American Conference of Pharmacometrics (ACoP)). In this subject of communications, the information provided is usually not sufficient to be able to replicate the results presented. Therefore, it is possible that due to the length and detail of the publication this work has been positively evaluated".

In the more immediate future, Balbas will have the opportunity to apply and continue training in aspects closely related to this project: "I have just embarked on a new professional challenge as"Medical Scientific Liason" in the dermatology area of a large pharmaceutical company. I focus on two pathologies similar in inflammatory and immunological character to the Inflammatory Bowel Disease that I have researched in this work", he explains.

Violeta Balbás hopes to continue growing professionally and to contribute the knowledge she has acquired, but without forgetting the need for continuous training. "In science you have to be updated, since thanks to the efforts of thousands of researchers every day new advances are presented and our duty is to know and disseminate them, with the greatest possible rigor. We cannot be left behind".