In vitro screening of drug metabolism during drug development: an interview with Olavi Pelkonen.

Dr Olavi Pelkonen (University of Oulu, Finland) was interviewed by Anna Treadway (Senior Editor, Expert Opinion) on 18 May 2006. Olavi Pelkonen has been Professor of Pharmacology and Head of the Department since 1986 at the University of Oulu, Finland. He was born in 1945, graduated from Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu in 1973, obtained his MD, PhD in 1973, was postdoc at National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, USA in 1976 - 1977 and was nominated associate professor in 1978. He has published > 300 reviews and original articles in the areas of drug and carcinogen metabolism, especially cytochrome P450 enzymes, pharmacogenetics and developmental pharmacology. At present, he is working to develop and validate in vitro and in silico methods for the use in drug development and chemical risk assessment, in collaboration with, for example, the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods and several European partners.