Issue Highlights.

Abstract

Figures from the editors selected issue highlights will be displayed each month in the journal image carousel on the BJCP homepage http://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2125/ One of the first conferences I attended during my time in Leiden was a Modeling and Simulation meeting a few miles outside of Leiden, in Noordwijkerhout, organized by Professor Meindert Danhof. The meeting was a dazzling display of differential equations and brilliant PK/PD models, with one model even more sophisticated and better than the other. It was a time when most lectures were still presented using actual slides, with a few early adapters of power point, if I remember correctly. The best and most memorable lecture of the entire symposium though was not about modeling and simulation. And it was not presented using slides or power point. It was the final plenary lecture of the meeting, and it was presented by an elderly Swedish Professor who had an overhead projector brought to the podium. He placed down an empty overhead projector sheet on which he made small notes with a marker while he presented. He started by complimenting everybody of the M&S community with their brilliant work, but subsequently elegantly explained that our work would have a much, much bigger impact on clinical outcome if we would focus on treatment adherence, and the improvement thereof. And despite the slightly disgruntled feeling it left with the M&S community, everyone wholeheartedly agreed that he was 100% correct. It is therefore great to see that this month's issue of BJCP is about adherence, and more precisely ‘Advancing the management of adherence in the clinical setting’. Adherence is a science in itself, and one that is finally coming of age. Please read the editorial from our guest editors Dan Wright, Klarissa Sinnappah, and Dyfrig Hughes, which provides a nice introduction to a wonderful new Themed Issue. https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bcp.15722 We are in the business of trying to improve the world. Through research, education, and patient care we try to improve the lives of people. And while our income may be relatively modest, it is all worth it if we see a patient improve as a result of our efforts, at least for me it is. But sometimes even us ‘altruistic’ clinical pharmacologists come across a project that is so noble that it immediately restores any loss of belief in humanity. In a wonderful review David Branford and colleagues from Truro, UK, describe patterns of antiseizure medication prescription in people with intellectual disability and epilepsy. A commendable effort to improve the quality of life of those who benefit from a bit of extra help. https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bcp.15748 Continuing our efforts to improve the world and ultimately leaving it a better place than we found it, it is worth reading the paper by Valentina Giunchi et al. who implemented a method to timely and cheaply estimate the environmental risk determined by pharmaceutical residues in Italian surface water combining eco-toxicological and consumption data. It is papers such as these that hopefully raise awareness and provide tools to us to decrease the ecological burden from our efforts to improve and sometimes save lives. https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bcp.15761 But let's not forget that basically all our efforts are geared towards improving the lives of others, whether they are focused on patient care, education, or therapeutics development. Collectively, the rest of the papers in this issue cover all these areas, and this issue of BJCP is therefore once again a good example of the breadth of clinical pharmacology. I will mention just one of these papers. Ying Zhang and colleagues from GSK describe a therapeutics development paper that paves the way for patient care. Using a metabolic probe cocktail, they were able to show in healthy volunteers that their new HIV-1 Maturation Inhibitor, GSK3640254 is unlikely to influence the PK of most other co-prescribed drugs in HIV patients. https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bcp.15699 I wish you much reading pleasure, and also a wonderful World Conference of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology in Glasgow (should you be able to attend). Have a great summer!