Bio Sietse Braakman
From a young age, Dr. Sietse Braakman has been fascinated with human physiology as well as engineering. Dr. Braakman combined these two interests by training as a Biomedical Engineer at Eindhoven University of Technology, where he earned BSc. (cum laude) and MSc. degrees. During one of his undergraduate projects he was first introduced to Systems Biology modeling. Mathematical modeling has been a key element in the multiple research projects that followed. After finishing his MSc., he received one of three fully funded PhD scholarships from the Bioengineering Department of Imperial College London. He completed his PhD thesis on the interplay between cellular biomechanics, aqueous humor outflow and pharmaceutical agents in regulating pressure in the eye as applied to the eye disease glaucoma. After his PhD, Dr. Braakman worked as a consultant in the pharmaceutical industry for market research, market access and business intelligence.
A yearning to apply more of his technical knowledge led him to switch to his current role as Lead Application Engineer for Computational Biology at MathWorks, where he combines his bioengineering training with his knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry across therapy areas. In this role, Dr. Braakman works closely with pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) and quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) modelers at all mayor pharmaceutical companies in North America and in academia who use MATLAB and/or SimBiology software. In his engagements with users, Dr. Braakman performs proof of concept studies, addresses technical and modeling questions, executes technical consulting projects and provides trainings and workshops.
Dr. Braakman’s first contact with the PK/PD/QSP modeling community was when he joined the regular meet-ups of Boston QSP in 2017. This proved to be a warm welcome in the larger modeling community that was followed by attending ASCPT and ISoP annual meetings. Both the ASCPT and ISoP societies have provided Dr. Braakman with very engaging (pre-)conferences, debates, great learning opportunities, and a tight-knit community. Over the past three years, Dr. Braakman has actively taken part in these communities by presenting original research at ASCPT and ACoP meetings, presenting webinars in Rosa & Co’s webinar series, presenting at an ISoP New England Chapter symposium and co-chairing a session on QSP model evaluation with Dr. Helen Moore at ACoP 2019.