Archive for October, 2008

Mathematics in Drug Development

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Irish Independent, 8 Oct 08, Supplement on Life Sciences-Research & Development in Ireland.

Two times a day a single pill—or half a pill in the morning and the evening? The attempt to find the most efficient medicine in the correct dose seems like solving an equation with many unknowns.

PK of a drugAt the Hamilton Institute at NUIM, the Computational Physiology group lead by Dr. Wilhelm Huisinga investigates the fade of drugs in the body. Jointly with pharmacists and in close cooperation with international drug companies, mathematicians and bioinformaticians analyse their pharmacokinetics and mechanisms of action. Mathematical theory combined with simulation studies has proven valuable in drug development, e.g., for our understanding of HIV disease in vivo. Missing doses are suspected to be a major reason for virus mutations, causing drug resistant and therapy failure. “Recently, we analysed the relation between drug pharmacokinetics and replication rate of HIV—with important implications’’, said Huisinga. “We theoretically understand, why it makes such a difference on the ability of the virus to replicate, whether a drug is taken once daily, twice daily or even three times a day’’. Currently, the results are extended to allow predictions for combination therapies of different drugs. For further information, see URL http://www.hamilton.ie/compphysiol.

Network Maths Programme in the News

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

Our Network Maths Graduate Programme, which ran its first taught modules for PhD students in the summer of 2008 features on University Science and in ENN.