The pharmacology and cancer communities lost a treasured member when Dr. Michelle A. Rudek passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday, November 7, 2023. Dr. Rudek was an exceptionally talented and driven researcher who continually contributed important scholarly research and demonstrated outstanding scientific leadership within the cancer pharmacology field, most prominently within the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT). What stands out the most was Dr. Rudek's unique ability to simultaneously excel in various aspects related to clinical cancer research, ranging from applied translational pharmacology of established cancer drugs to optimize their rational use to the clinical development of novel, cutting‐edge molecularly targeted agents.
As an internationally recognized leader in her fields, Dr. Rudek has played a central role in establishing pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) relationships and population PK analyses of molecularly targeted agents and in the guidance of optimizing the design of clinical studies evaluating the influence of organ dysfunction on the safe use of anticancer drugs. These contributions have all had a dominant impact on the direction of research in each of these respective research areas and simultaneously confirmed the scope and depth of her skills and knowledge. Dr. Rudek established many collaborations with researchers throughout the world, ensuring that her skills were paired with meaningful evaluations for potential therapeutic activity. As a longtime member of ASCPT, Dr. Rudek served on the Board of Directors, as chair of the Scientific Awards Nominations Task Force, Vice‐Chair of the Coordinating Committee on Scientific Sections, Chair of the Oncology Scientific Section and the Translational and Precision Medicine Network, and as an Editorial Board Member of Clinical and Translational Science.
Dr. Rudek was born in Pittsburgh, PA, on March 17, 1972. She received her undergraduate degree in Pharmacy from the University of Pittsburgh and dual PharmD/PhD degrees from a joint National Cancer Institute/Virginia Commonwealth University graduate program in clinical pharmacology. In 2002, Dr. Rudek was recruited as an Instructor in the Drug Development Program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she directed the Kimmel Cancer Center's Analytical Pharmacology Shared Resource Lab and rose to the rank of Professor of Oncology in 2019. Dr. Rudek was incredibly productive, authoring more than 200 peer‐reviewed articles and invited reviews in some of the principal peer‐reviewed journals in the field, including Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics and Clinical Cancer Research. In her collective research output, she made pivotal contributions to a variety of important translational fields, including the discovery of potentially harmful drug–drug interactions in treatment regimens used in HIV‐infected individuals with cancer, and the extent to which systemic pharmacokinetic properties of cytotoxic chemotherapeutic agents contribute to the prediction of dose‐limiting toxicities.
Dr. Rudek served as executive editor of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and was the first non‐physician scientist to receive the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Michaele C. Christian Oncology Development Award for her work assessing the safety of early‐phase anticancer agents in special populations. She also served as chair of the NCI Investigational Drug Steering Committee Pharmacology Task Force, the NCI Organ Dysfunction Working Group, and the AIDS Malignancy Clinical Trials Consortium Translational Science Working Group. At the time of her death, she was the principal investigator on several grants, including a U24 titled, “The Chesapeake‐Ohio Pharmacokinetics Core for the Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network (ETCTN)” from the NCI.
Dr. Rudek actively promoted the careers of many of her younger colleagues at ASCPT and her home institution through classroom teaching as well as direct mentoring of students, oncology fellows, clinical pharmacology fellows, and junior faculty. Her persistent championing of trainees propelled their careers and fostered a network of excellent researchers of whom many assumed important leadership roles in the drug development field. On a personal note, Dr. Rudek had many interests outside of work, including being a proud mother to her daughter, devout Yoga practitioner, a love for cooking and baking cookies, and an avid Pittsburgh Steelers fan.
Dr. Michelle A. Rudek was a uniquely talented clinical pharmacologist and a beloved friend and colleague to many in our field.
In honor of Dr. Michelle A. Rudek, a fund has been established by her colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center to recognize her legacy. Please make checks payable to Johns Hopkins University. Gifts may be mailed with a memo indicating that this gift is in honor of Dr. Rudek and sent to Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, 750 E. Pratt Street, Suite 1700, Baltimore, MD 21202, or make a gift online (https://secure.jhu.edu/form/Kimmel; choose other and specify Dr. Michelle Rudek Fund).
FUNDING INFORMATION
No funding was received for this work.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The authors declared no competing interests for this work.