Get to know ASCPT members @Lance Kuo-Esser and @Yifan Zheng!
Lance Kuo-Esser, BS, Graduate Student, Cincinnati Children's, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
What does being a 2026 Presidential Trainee Award Recipient mean to you?
It tells me that work at the intersection of pharmacometrics, clinical pharmacology, and translational decision-making is valued. I see it less as a finish line and more as confirmation that we are asking the right questions, with a responsibility to focus on work that is not just technically sound, but clinically useful.
Why did you submit your abstract for presentation at the ASCPT 2026 Annual Meeting?
I submitted my abstract to contribute to the broader conversation around pharmacoequity, particularly how quantitative approaches can help ensure patients are systematically under- or overtreated. ASCPT brings together people who care about both the methods and their clinical impact, and it felt like the right place to engage in that discussion.
What has been the greatest challenge in your career?
One of the biggest challenges has been translating technical work and models into something that can actually inform decisions. It is one thing to build a model, but another to communicate what it means, what the limitations are, and how it should or should not be used. That shift has shaped how I approach both modeling and collaboration.
Do you have a favorite tip or trick for clinical practice or research that you want to share?
While I am still new to the field, one thing that has stood out is that you cannot look at dose, exposure, response, or toxicity in isolation. Each piece matters, but the value comes from understanding how they fit together. I try to keep that full picture in mind and ask whether what we are proposing is not only effective but also realistic and tolerable in practice.
What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you?
Outside of research, I am involved in search and rescue and technical rescue operations. It is a very different environment, but it reinforces similar principles: making decisions with incomplete information, working under uncertainty, and prioritizing what matters most in real time. That mindset carries over directly into how I approach clinical pharmacology problems.
Lance has been a member of ASCPT since 2023.