DC 17: Daoud Abu Husein
Daoud Abu Husein (Italy) is a pharmacist and holds a master’s degree in pharmaceutical biotechnology, with an emphasis on pharmacogenomics and precision therapeutics, from the University of Milan – Italy.
Given his keen interest in individualized dosing to improve patient outcomes, his master thesis focused on model-informed precision dosing (MIPD) of infliximab in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) in collaboration with the KU Leuven Pharmacometrics Research Group, Belgium.
During his research internship, he applied population pharmacokinetic (popPK) modeling and simulation (i.e., pharmacometrics) to optimize infliximab therapy—addressing issues such as primary non-response and loss of response that persist despite the drug’s long-standing clinical use. His work highlighted the potential of data-driven precision dosing approaches to improve therapeutic outcome.
Under the MENTOR doctoral network, since September 2025, Daoud has been a PhD fellow at UMC Utrecht – Epilepsy Research Group, supervised by Dr. Floor Jansen. In this project, he will contribute to investigating the metabolic alterations and mTOR pathway dysregulation in patients with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) and GATOR1-related epilepsy.
Planned secondments: 3 months at PD-value for modelling drug response across blood brain barrier, 3 months at Institut du Cerveau for DNAsequencing of patient samples
ORCID
PD-Value
3 months Utrecht, Netherlands
Institut du Cerveau
3 monthsParis, France
My research project
The mTOR pathway regulates essential cellular functions, such as protein synthesis, cell growth, and synaptic plasticity, potentially impacting neuronal excitability and epileptogenesis. Genetic variants in pathway-related genes lead to neurological issues, including epilepsy and neurodevelopmental disorders. DC17 will focus on two genetic conditions: tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) with TSC1 or TSC2 gene variants and GATOR 1 epilepsy with DEPDC5, NPRL2, and NPRL3 gene variants. The main objective is to improve our understanding of altered metabolism in TSC or GATOR1 epilepsy patients and the interplay between altered metabolism, mTORC1, and clinical manifestation. The ultimate goal is to identify novel targets and approaches for therapeutic intervention. Specifically, DC17 will assess blood amino acid levels and glucose after fasting in patients with TSC or GATOR1 epilepsy and associate alterations with neurological manifestations assisted by magnetic resonance spectroscopy. We will investigate amino acids and glucose levels in TSC patients under ketogenic diet or mTOR inhibitor treatment and study the relations with efficacy, tolerance and response to treatment. Finally, we will identify possible targets for nutritional interventions and conduct a proof-of-principle n of 1 trial.
PhD enrolment : 
DC 16: Muskan Madan