Jürgen Bulitta

Biography

Dr. Bulitta has joined the Center for Pharmaco­metrics and Systems Pharmacology (CPSP) in the Department of Pharmaceutics at the College of Pharmacy as an Associate Professor in July 2015. He is supported by the University of Florida’s preeminence program in Drug Discovery and Development. His laboratory is located at CPSP in Lake Nona. Prior to joining UF, he worked as a Sr. Research Fellow at Monash Univ. in Australia. Dr. Bulitta’s research focuses on multidrug-resistant bacterial ‘superbugs’ which present one of the three most serious threats to human health. To combat this global health crisis, his research goals are to develop and rationally optimize novel antibiotic combination dosing strategies and to discover and develop new antibiotics based on mechanistic biological insights which his group generated over the last decade. Dr. Bulitta’s most significant scientific contributions are Discovery of the first antibiotics that eradicate non-replicating bacterial persisters at clinically relevant concentrations, Identification and rational optimization of unique penicillin-binding protein (PBP) receptor occupancy patterns using double β-lactam antibiotic combinations to synergistically kill Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii and minimize resistance, Development and rational optimization of antibiotic combination dosage regimens against multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa, A. baumannii, and Escherichia coli, and Pioneering the field of mechanism-based and QSP modeling of antibiotics. His group uses latest pharmacometrics methodology and dynamic in vitro infection models to develop systems pharmacology models that translate mechanistic research insights into innovative, clinically relevant dosage regimens. To date, he has significantly contributed to the translational development of beta-lactam antibiotics, beta-lactam / beta-lactamase inhibitor combinations, polymyxins, tedizolid (FDA approved in 2014), fusidic acid (in Phase III), and other antibiotics. He is an international leader in translational QSP modeling of antibiotics. His highly collaborative research involves an international network of academic, clinical and industry collaborators. Dr. Bulitta has been / is funded by 17 peer-reviewed grants from the NIH-US, FDA, State of Florida, and the Australian equivalents of NIH and NSF and by 29 collaborative projects with pharmaceutical industry (total: $17M). Dr. Bulitta published 112 peer-reviewed papers and contributed to over 95 phase I-IV clinical trials. He is the creator and developer of the SADAPT-TRAN facilitator package to develop systems pharmacology models in the S-ADAPT population modeling software package. He received the Giorgio Segré Prize 2010 for distinct contributions in the field of pharmacokinetics and pharmaco­dynamics by the European Federation for Pharmaceutical Sciences (EUFEPS) and the 2012 ASCEPT Denis Wade Johnson & Johnson New Investigators Award.

Research Interest

Drug discovery, development and optimal patient therapies Pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, translational pharmacology Infectious diseases, multidrug-resistant bacteria, non-replicating persister phenotype Beta-lactams, polymyxins, aminoglycosides and other antibiotics Penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) Synergistic antibiotic combinations to maximize bacterial killing and minimize resistance Dynamic infection models (including the hollow fiber system), emergence of resistance Pharmacometrics, population modeling, and quantitative systems pharmacology S-ADAPT and SADAPT-TRAN