Patent ID: 7774182

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for validating multiple virtual patients, wherein the computer comprises a processor, a user-interface and a computer-readable medium, said method comprising: receiving a baseline computer model of a biological system via the user-interface, wherein the computer model represents a plurality of biological processes of the biological system and wherein the computer model comprises a plurality of parameters; the processor executing instructions encoded in the computer-readable medium, wherein the instructions comprise: generating a plurality of virtual patients by changing at least one parameter of the plurality of parameters of the computer model, wherein each virtual patient is different from the other virtual patients by at least one parameter, but share the remaining parameters; applying a validation structure to each virtual patient, wherein said validation structure comprises one or more sets of stimulus-response tests, wherein a stimulus-response test defines a modification to at least one biological process of the plurality of biological processes, and a set of expected responses associated with each stimulus-response test, wherein applying the validation structure comprises: associating each virtual patient with one or more sets of stimulus response test; applying one or more stimulus-response tests to each virtual patient to produce a simulated response for test for each of the plurality of virtual patients; and generating an indication of validity for each virtual patient by comparing the simulated response to the one of more stimulus-response tests with the associated expected response to the stimulus-response test for each virtual patient; and displaying the indication of validity for each virtual patient via the user-interface, wherein the indication of validity is selected from a first validity indication, a second validity indication and a third validity indication, wherein the first validity indication indicates that the simulated response is substantially consistent with the expected response, the second validity indication indicates a borderline situation that may merit further consideration by a user, and the third validity indication indicates that the simulated response lies outside an outer ramie defined for an expected response.