VPH - preDiCT

The preDiCT project officially launched 1 June 2008, with a mission to model, simulate, and ultimately predict the impact of pharmacological compounds on the heart's rhythm using computer models.

This requires advances beyond the current state-of-the-art in:

- Mathematical models of individual ion channels, which control how and when cells contract;

- Tissue models, which encapsulate chemical processes and physical relationships at millions of separate points in the heart; and

- The computer code, which must compute these relationships as a series of complex equations, to enable faster-than-real-time simulation of a living heart.

Current best practice in pharmaceutical development relies on the Q-T interval (the spacing of two points on an electrocardiogram) as a proxy for potential danger. However, it is known that some drugs which fail this test do not lead to arrhythmia (e.g. Ranolazine, whose safety was demonstrated by the Oxford team). We hope to be able to develop more accurate gauges of potential cardiotoxicity.  See a brief explanation of the importance of the Q-T interval here.

About 40% of drug candidates fail to come to market due to adverse impact on heart rhythm. We hope to achieve better understanding of the underlying mechanisms, which may lead to refinement of the drug development process to avoid these side effects.

By extending the frontiers of "in silico" experimentation, our project will enable future researchers to refine, replace and ultimately reduce the use of animals in pharmaceutical and other cardiac research.

The consortium is part of the wider EC-funded Virtual Physiological Human effort, linked to the umbrella VPH Network of Excellence project (www.vph-noe.eu).

Project members:

Aureus Pharma Ltd (France)

Centro di Ricerca, Sviluppo e Studi Superiori in Sardegna (CRS4, Italy)

Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe (UK)

GlaxoSmithKline Research and Development (UK)

Novartis Pharma (Switzerland)

F Hoffmann-LaRoche (Switzerland)

Szegedi Tudomanyegtetem (University of Szeged, Hungary)

Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (Spain)

University of Oxford (UK)

The preDiCT project is embedded in the broader VPH initiative, with direct links to two other FP7-funded VPH projects: The Integrating Project euHeart, which will focus on patient-specific simulation for treatment of cardiovascular disease (17 partners, jointly coordinated by the Philips Technology Research Laboratory and the University of Oxford) and the Virtual Physiological Human Network of Excellence, a service to the community of VPH researchers (13 core partners plus broader membership, jointly coordinated by University College London and the University of Oxford).

preDiCT project current funding: This project is partially funded by the European Commission, under the Seventh Framework Programme.

Duration: 36 Months (June 2008 - May 2011)

Call Identifier: FP7-2008-IST, Project number 224381