A NHLBI-funded team of researchers from Brown University developed a computer model that could be used to test new medications for sickle cell disease. The model simulates the way red blood cells become misshapen by this painful and life-threatening condition and scientists would be able to conduct preclinical evaluation of drugs aimed at preventing the sickling process. The researchers presented the model in a paper published in Science Advances.
The model allows users to input the mode of action or mechanism by which a drug is presumed to work, from the information usually gathered during preliminary lab studies, in order to test its potential effectiveness. If a drug is designed to boost the amount of healthy hemoglobin in red blood cells, the model uses that information to generate the effect on a large population of patient-specific or organ-specific red blood cells.
“Sometimes a drug can be designed to work on one parameter but ends up having a different effect on other parameters,” said senior author George Karniadakis, professor of applied mathematics at Brown University. “The model can tell if those effects are synergistic or whether they may negate each other. So, the model can give us an idea of the overall effect of the drug.”