Meghan (McCabe) Pryor, Ph.D.

Engineer specializing in Quantitative Systems Pharmacology and mathematical modeling

Highlights

Dr. Meghan (McCabe) Pryor is as devoted to motherhood, fitness, and professional development as she is to her love for quantitative modeling – and she brings that passion to everything that she does. She is a QSP and PKPD modeler with a PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of New Mexico (B.Ch.E. Chemical Engineering & B.S. Quantitative Biology, University of Delaware). After a post-doc at Johns Hopkins University, Meghan moved to her first role in industry at Rosa & Co as a QSP modeler under the mentorship of Christina Friedrich where she was able to build a strong foundation of expertise in a broad range of modeling techniques as well as therapeutic/disease areas. She eventually moved to Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) where she currently focuses her modeling efforts on driving efficient discovery/preclinical development of small molecule (SM) and beyond rule of 5 (bRo5) compounds in the DMPK group by applying her expertise in QSP and PKPD modeling approaches to design optimized studies, reduce uncertainty/risk, and determine efficacious first-in-human (FIH) dose strategies. Meghan is passionate about professional development, supporting women in leadership, and developing the next generation of women leaders. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading books, crocheting, and riding her Peloton.

15+ years of experience through a series of higher education and industrial roles, 10+ years industry specific experience

Therapeutic Areas
neurology (Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, frontotemporal dementia, opioid), immune-oncology, oncology (TNB, lung,heme), dermatology (atopic dermatitis, psoriasis), respiratory (COPD, asthma), fibrotic disease (acute kidney injury, endometriosis, acute respiratory distress syndrome), and rare disease (innate immune system, complement)
Industry Highlights
Janssen (J&J)

In my first 3 years at Janssen, I have helped enable teams to progress multiple compounds through the NME stage and currently have 1 compound in the clinic.

My key role at Janssen is to develop a robust human dose projection strategy via quantitative pharmacology to enable efficient compound development and progression from early preclinical development through early clinical stages.

Quantitative pharmacology includes pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PKPD) modeling, semi-mechanistic modeling, all the way through quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) modeling and beyond.

Since joining Janssen in October 2019, I have expanded my drug development skill set to include extensive knowledge of small molecules as well as PROTACs and other beyond rule of 5 (BRo5) molecule development. I have successfully helped guide teams from early discovery stages (hit to lead/lead optimization) to early development stages (late lead optimization) to cross the line to new molecular entity declaration (NME) and first-in-human (FIH).

Rosa & Co

I joined Rosa as a full-time PhysioPD Engineer in January 2016 after consulting as an engineer since 2012.

Rosa’s PhysioPD Research methodologies involve developing QSP style mechanistic mathematical models to support and assist drug development in all stages of the development pipeline.

Academic Research Highlights
Postdoctoral Fellowship

After finishing my dissertation, I moved east to be a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Popel Systems Biology Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. My research focused on building multi-scale models, molecular through tissue scale, to study immune checkpoint blockade therapies for immuno-oncology and investigate the progression of breast cancer metastasis.

Graduate Dissertation

I successfully defended my Chemical Engineering Ph.D. dissertation, with distinction, on April 29th, 2014.

My dissertation research was focused on membrane proteins implicated in various forms of cancer progression. I developed spatial stochastic mathematical models to study how transmembrane protein kinetics and dynamics impact activation of signaling pathways in the cell. I also developed an algorithm to reconstruct cellular membrane confinement zones from Single Particle Tracking (SPT) data.

Undergraduate Research

I received dual Bachelor degrees in Chemical Engineering (B.Ch.E.) and Quantitative Biology (B.S.) from the University of Delaware in 2010. While at the University of Delaware, my research focused on developing a deterministic multi-scale process model to aid in creating an online controller for MAb glycosylation.