Roger W. Jelliffe, M.D. (1929–2020)

Excerpt

Our professional and academic community lost a great pioneer in the field of pharmacokinetics when Dr Roger Jelliffe, a cardiologist and Professor of Medicine, died 22 June at the age of 91 years. Roger attended University School, graduated from Harvard in 1950, then obtained his M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He then joined the Department of Medicine at the University of Southern California. There he designed computer software for individualizing drug dosage. He developed optimally precise, individualized drug dosage regimens for patient care involving potentially toxic drugs with narrow therapeutic margins of safety. He was one of the first to integrate physiological parameters into pharmacokinetic data analysis, an approach that today is known as PBPK. He founded the USC Laboratory of Applied Pharmacokinetics in 1973. Over the course of his 60-year career, he authored and collaborated on hundreds of peer-reviewed publications and mentored over 100 visiting scientific scholars from around the world. A recipient of the Research Achievement Award from the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists in 1997, Roger was honored in 2019 by the American College of Clinical Pharmacology with an award established in recognition of his lifetime achievement. He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Joyce Evelyn Miller Jelliffe, their four children, and five grandchildren. …