Syed Saoud Zaidi, PharmD, PhD

Bio

Dr. Zaidi is a clinical pharmacologist and pharmacometrician whose research focuses on determining appropriate drug dosing for patients who are often underrepresented in clinical trials, particularly pregnant individuals, fetuses, neonates, and children. He develops physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) and population pharmacokinetic (PopPK) models to predict drug exposure and support evidence-based dosing in these special populations.

His work integrates gestational physiology, developmental pharmacology, and transporter-mediated drug disposition. He has developed and verified pregnancy PBPK models for nifedipine, caffeine, and metformin, as well as a pediatric PopPK model for levocetirizine. His nifedipine pregnancy PBPK research received the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Top Poster and Presidential Trainee Awards.

Dr. Zaidi is a Research Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the Clinical Pharmacology Analytical Core at Indiana University School of Medicine. In this role, he bridges experimental pharmacology and quantitative modeling by generating laboratory data and developing the models used to interpret it. The core supports drug discovery and development through in vitro ADME studies, including solubility, stability, metabolic clearance, and protein-binding assays—along with formulation development for in vivo studies and quantitative LC–MS/MS bioanalysis across diverse biological matrices using advanced UHPLC–MS/MS platforms.

Dr. Zaidi earned a PharmD and completed his PhD in Pharmaceutics at the University of Florida as a Fulbright Scholar. Under the mentorship of Drs. Hartmut Derendorf and Günther Hochhaus, his doctoral research examined the role of P-glycoprotein at the blood–brain and fetoplacental barriers.

His technical expertise spans NONMEM, Monolix, nlmixr2, mrgsolve, Simcyp, PK-Sim, GastroPlus, SimBiology, and Phoenix WinNonlin. Across his research, he emphasizes mechanistic integrity, physiological plausibility, and transparent communication about what models can—and cannot—identify from available data.

Dr. Zaidi welcomes collaborations in model-informed drug development, special-population dosing, translational pharmacokinetics, and bioanalytical support for pharmacokinetic studies.