Rule-based whole body modeling for analyzing multi-compound effects
Woochang Hwang, Youngdeuk Hwang, Sunjae Lee, Doheon Lee · 2012
Essential reasons including robustness, redundancy, and crosstalk of biological systems, have been reported to explain the limited efficacy and unexpected side-effects of drugs. Many pharmaceutical laboratories have begun to develop multi-compound drugs to remedy this situation, and some of them have shown successful clinical results. Simultaneous application of multiple compounds could increase efficacy as well as reduce side-effects through pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetic interactions. However, such approach requires overwhelming cost of preclinical experiments and tests as the number of possible combinations of compound dosages increases exponentially. Computer model-based experiments have been emerging as one of the most promising solutions to cope with such complexity. Though there have been many efforts to model specific molecular pathways using qualitative and quantitative formalisms, they suffer from unexpected results caused by distant interactions beyond their localized models.