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. 2016 May;5(5):235-49.
doi: 10.1002/psp4.12071. Epub 2016 Apr 16.

A Six-Stage Workflow for Robust Application of Systems Pharmacology

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A Six-Stage Workflow for Robust Application of Systems Pharmacology

K Gadkar et al. CPT Pharmacometrics Syst Pharmacol. 2016 May.

Abstract

Quantitative and systems pharmacology (QSP) is increasingly being applied in pharmaceutical research and development. One factor critical to the ultimate success of QSP is the establishment of commonly accepted language, technical criteria, and workflows. We propose an integrated workflow that bridges conceptual objectives with underlying technical detail to support the execution, communication, and evaluation of QSP projects.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A six‐stage iterative workflow for quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) project execution, including the conceptual objective of each stage (blue text) and the corresponding technical objective (red text). The workflow is iterative and model‐based insights of different nature and degrees of robustness can be obtained at each stage.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Signaling pathway diagram generated in Cytoscape software. Visual properties of nodes and edges are user‐specified. Diagrams can be generated for any network directly in GUI or through text/tabular file specification of nodes and connectivity.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic for use of virtual subjects in quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) research. Reference subjects are developed to represent major phenotypes of interest (here, responder vs. nonresponder patients to a specified therapy). For each phenotype, starting with the reference subject, numerous alternate virtual subjects are generated to address parametric uncertainty and variability. Finally, a virtual cohort represents the combination of numerous virtual subjects of interest, potentially including prevalence weighting to capture statistical measures of population outcomes to create a virtual population.

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