Dr Ann Rigby-Jones

Lecturer in Pharmacology

Qualifications

Professional membership

• Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC)
• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
• Member of the UK Society for Intravenous Anaesthesia (UK SIVA)

Roles on external bodies

Chair of the Professionalism Workstream of the PA Schools Council 

Teaching interests

My current roles include:

• Curriculum Lead for Pharmacology & Therapeutics for our MSc Physician Associate Studies programme
• Module Lead for Personal and Professional Development (MSc Physician Associate Studies)
• Module Lead for BMBS Student Selected Component 1 (SSC1) 
• Academic Lead for Intercalation (BMBS)
• Chair of the Medical School Teaching, Learning and Quality Committee
• Enquiry Based Learning Facilitator for Year 1 BMBS students
• Life Science Resource Centre facilitator for Year 2 BMBS students
• Developing and delivering plenaries for the BMBS and MSc Physician Associate programmes
• Special Study Unit (SSU) facilitator
  
• • SSU 1-3 Year 1 BMS students
  • Doctors as Educations - A Year 2 longitudinal SSU in which BMBS students are given the task of developing their own teaching and learning resource, reflecting on their own experiences of teaching and learning and deepening their understanding of pedagogy.
    
• I contributing to question writing and exam paper review for the Applied Medical Knowledge module (BMBS) and Foundations of Clinical Medicine module (MSc Physician Associate Studies).

Research interests

Current Research Interests
Population pharmacokinetics & pharmacodynamics, novel drug compounds, anaesthetic drug use in patients at the extremes of weight (paediatric critical care, bariatric surgery patients), health hazards related to use of medical plastics and dental composites (toxicokinetics)

DOCTORAL & POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

2000-2004 The Pharmacokinetics (PK) and Pharmacodynamics (PD) of Propofol in the Critically Ill Child, a collaboration with Professor Wolf, University of Bristol. I developed a novel solid phase extraction procedure for propofol quantification from 0.1mL whole blood. Three studies were conducted; an initial population PK study in 21 critically ill neonates, infants and children, a follow-up population PK-PD study in 10 infants and children and finally, a population analysis of pooled data (our own PK data plus data provided by 6 international research groups). These studies greatly extended the knowledge of paediatric propofol PK and PD, particularly for the smallest patients.

2003-2006 Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Studies of Remifentanil in Paediatric Intensive Care, a collaboration with Professor Wolf, University of Bristol. I developed a novel high performance liquid chromatography assay allowing simultaneously quantification of remifentanil, fentanyl and midazolam from 0.9mL of whole blood. ‘Sparse sampling’ combined with NONMEM population modelling allowed optimal information yield from a restricted total blood sample volume whilst maximising model predictive performance. This study has provided the first description of paediatric remifentanil pharmacokinetics following infusion and has produced a model of drug disposition that can be applied to post-cardiac surgery children aged from 1 month to 9 years of age.

2005-2006 Ketamine Pharmacokinetics in Healthy Volunteers, a collaboration with Dr Absalom, University of Cambridge. I developed a new population based pharmacokinetic model for ketamine in healthy volunteers from pooled data. Retrospective evaluation shows that the predictive accuracy of our new model improves on previous inadequate models (based on suboptimal sampling schemes and non-physiological assumptions). Our new model will shortly undergo prospective evaluation prior to clinical deployment.

Industry-funded Pharmacokinetic-Pharmacodynamic Modelling Projects

2007-2008
I worked with Labopharm, Canada, assisting with the pre-clinical development of a new formulation of propofol.

2008-2012
In collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry (Maruishi, Japan) and with Veeda Clinical Research centre (Plymouth), I provided pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic analysis of data from Phase 1 clinical trials of a new sedative-hypnotic drug (MR04A3) and comparator compounds.

Research degrees awarded to supervised students

I am Director of Studies for a postgraduate research student, Mrs Anfal Alwadi. Anfal is investigating dental composites as a potential source of human exposure to bisphenol A and plasticiser phthalates.

Other academic activities

I regularly provide reviews for the journals; British Journal of Anaesthesia, Anaesthesia and Anesthesiology. I am a member of the population pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic review team for the journal, Pediatric Anesthesia.