Louis DeRidder
Louis DeRidder is a PhD candidate in medical engineering and medical physics whose research aims to develop a closed-loop drug delivery system for chemotherapy drugs. With the support of his second MathWorks Fellowship, Louis will continue an ambitious research program to bring the novel drug-delivery system, Closed-Loop Automated Drug Infusion (CLAUDIA) regulator, to the clinic. CLAUDIA measures the concentration of a drug and then inputs that value into a control algorithm that adjusts the infusion rate of the drug to bring its concentration to the desired level. This system has been shown to control the concentration of 5-fluorouracil in vivo, and Louis is now leading a team to validate CLAUDIA for additional drugs. He is also heading efforts to develop a fully automated version of CLAUDIA for clinical translation and working with oncologist collaborators to design the first-in-human clinical trials. MathWorks tools, including the Control Systems Toolbox and Simulink, have been critical in developing this first-of-its-kind system. Louis’s research holds great promise for reducing toxicity, enhancing the efficacy of many chemotherapy drugs, and improving outcomes for cancer patients.