ProfessorJan-Willem Alffenaar

Professor Jan-Willem Alffenaar research interests centeres around optimizing antimicrobial therapy using pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) principles, particularly for anti-tuberculosis and antifungal drugs. His work aims to improve the balance between efficacy and safety of treatment by applying tools such as therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), pharmacokinetic modelling, and optimal sampling strategies. A major focus is understanding how drugs behave in the body and how this influences both clinical outcomes and adverse effects, with strong interest in alternative sampling approaches like dried blood spots and oral fluid to facilitate monitoring outside traditional settings.

The optimisation of the TDM process has become a major interest for him. This includes all the steps from sample collection, sample analysis, interpretation and dose adjustment. A important aspect is the reduction in turnaround time to make sure that results are impactful for routine care. Development of point-of-care tests to faciliated timely results is on the focus areas.