Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Dr Anna Kirpichnikova served as an invited panel expert in mathematical modelling at a Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP) meeting.
The closed meeting featured academics, industry and regulatory agency experts, who explored Quantitative Systems Pharmacology: Is there a case for model reduction?.
Dr Kirpichnikova said: “The establishment of QSP groups within the pharmaceutical industry over the past 15 years or so, and the increased use of QSP models within medicine research and development, led to a need to clarify criteria for model development and validation aspects. In addition, there was a need to justify the benefits of using complex models, which at times may be over-parametrised and consisting unidentifiable parameters.”
Held at the University of Oxford, the keynote address was given by Denis Noble CBE, one of the pioneers of Systems Biology, provided an evolutionary perspective/nature’s point of view, highlighting physiological/functional redundancy being inherent to biological systems.
Industrial research was presented by Pfiser, one of the world's premier innovative biopharmaceutical companies, which develops over 140 different medicines, vaccines and consumer healthcare products in the UK and around the world every year. The 'white paper' summarising the outcomes of the meeting is currently in preparation.