Biology in Silico By Rebecca Zacks March 2001 Computer models could revolutionize drug development. Photo by Phototake Software can model complex processes in cells like the neuron above. But for researchers struggling to make sense of vast amounts of new biological data, and for drug companies anxious to cut costs and speed development, having accurate computer simulations of living systems is still a dream. But today's computer models go far beyond that, taking advantage of data from areas ranging from genome sequencing to clinical trials to look at how a potential drug affects entire biological systems. According to statistics from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, human trials fail for 70 to 75 percent of drugs that enter them.
Some trials fail just because the dose is wrong.
NJ's Physiome Sciences are developing computer models that can be used both to identify molecular targets for new drugs and also to simulate clinical trials. For example, the Leverkusen, Germany-based pharmaceutical giant Bayer is using one of Entelos's models to evaluate a potential drug for asthmatics, testing a variety of patient types and treatment regimens on the computer. The Internet could become a critical tool in developing such models, allowing researchers to collaborate around the world. So Physiome has partnered with the Bioengineering Research Group at New Zealand's University of Auckland to develop an open-standard computer language for biological modeling. The idea, says Physiome executive vice president Thomas Colatsky, is that researchers will be able to build models in a common format and share those models via the Web.