Meet Dr. Paolo DePetrillo
There is a plant called belladonna that has intrigued Dr. Paolo DePetrillo since he was a young child. He recalls seeing this plant as he romped through his grandmother’s garden near Rome and he still remembers the constant reminders to never eat its berries. Dating back to Roman times, belladonna’s leaves and roots were found to have medicinal and cosmetic powers. Learning about this powerful plant at an early age is one of the reasons why Dr. DePetrillo became interested in medicine—and gardening.
Dr. Paolo DePetrillo, known as “Dr. De,” is Pharmaron’s Medical Director at the Clinical Pharmacology Center (CPC) in Baltimore, Maryland where he leads the medical and operations staff. With 30 years’ experience in clinical and laboratory research, Dr. De credits his professors, Dr. Paul Calabresi and Dr. Darrell Abernethy, at Brown University for introducing him to clinical pharmacology. Dr. De liked the fact that it combined many skill sets, such as drug discovery and development with medicine, and allowed him to interact directly with patients and laboratory sciences.
At Pharmaron’s CPC, Dr. De is always making the rounds. Any given day he may be meeting with the executive team to develop and implement policies, performing physical exams on study participants or assisting sponsors with protocol development and study design to ensure safety and efficiency. Each of these areas tap into his top goals, which are to ensure patient safety and data integrity.
As Medical Director at the CPC, Dr. De has overseen dozens of studies. He likes the fact that each study is unique and presents its own set of challenges. He recalls a recent COPD inhaler study where he discovered it was necessary to segregate participants, to prevent the mist from the inhaler cross-contaminating other participants in the study. Also, in a recent Thorough QT (TQT) study to assess cardiac safety, it was quickly determined that study participants should be preemptively treated with a medication to avoid gastrointestinal issues which may have confounded TQT results. Once this issue was identified, the clinical protocol was rapidly amended to ensure its successful outcome.
Currently, Dr. De, a radiation-authorized technician, is excited to be working with Pharmaron’s radiolabelling sciences team on integrated clinical metabolism studies involving the use of the carbon-14 radioisotope-based microtracers. This is a new service area provided by Pharmaron with six human ADME studies slated to run at CPC by the end of the year. These novel approaches employ ultra-low doses of radioactivity administered to human volunteers (1 μCi vs. 100-200 μCi for traditional study designs) and are enabled by the use of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) as the analytical platform.
Whether he is meeting with a patient/participant, partner or colleague, Dr. De enjoys each and every interaction. He knows these communications are key to building the trust and confidence within the team and our partners. He also attributes much of this success to the efforts of the team of three sub-investigators, whom he recruited and trained.
About Dr. Paolo DePetrillo
Dr. Paolo DePetrillo is Medical Director at Pharmaron’s Clinical Pharmacology Center in Baltimore, Maryland. He joined Pharmaron when the company acquired the majority stake in SNBL CPC in February 2017. Dr. DePetrillo joined SNBL CPC as Medical Director in July 2013. Prior to this, he was a Senior Research Investigator at the NIH, founding partner of Applied Pharmacogenomics, LLC and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brown University. He obtained his M.D. from Brown University and received board certifications in internal medicine and clinical pharmacology. He was a recipient of the Pfizer Clinical Pharmacology Fellowship Award.
In his spare time, he enjoys growing herbs, such as thyme, basil, and garlic, which go well with his Italian recipes. And yes, he has belladonna in his garden, too. Dr. De still loves this plant, but now it’s because the deer do not like them, so they stay away from his herb garden.
Updated July 2021
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