Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP) approaches aim to predict the safety and therapeutic impact of a drug by quantifying the dynamics of its interactions with underlying pathophysiology in order to guide and support drug development.  

In this webinar, we will demonstrate use of a rheumatoid arthritis (RA) PhysioPD™ Research Platform to explore the potential of a combination therapy approach to improve clinical response to RA therapy. Using different Virtual Patients, we will demonstrate how mechanistic differences in underlying pathophysiology can affect response to treatment.

SimBiology and MATLAB constitute a flexible and powerful platform to streamline QSP workflows. This webinar will use the RA case study to illustrate the utility of key features in exploring pharmaceutical research questions. We will demonstrate key features such as model building using the graphical interface, identifying pathways and parameters with the greatest impact on outcomes by performing sensitivity analyses, and creating and simulating Virtual Patients with meaningful mechanistic differences.

About the Presenters

Christina Friedrich, PhD, is the Chief Engineer at Rosa, responsible for the modeling methods and processes employed in Rosa’s PhysioPD practice. She has over 16 years of experience in developing and applying mathematical models of biologic/physiologic systems to product development decisions faced by biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and consumer product companies. Her modeling experience encompasses a variety of disease areas, including diabetes, blood disorders, oncology/immuno-oncology, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, rheumatoid arthritis and other immune disorders, and skin disorders.

Before joining Rosa, Dr. Friedrich was the Director of Core Product Development at Entelos, Inc., where she designed and led the development of models in new disease areas, extended existing models into new markets, pioneered numerous methodologies, and led large research collaborations with bio-pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Friedrich holds B.S. degrees in Mathematics and Engineering Systems & Computation from MIT and a Ph.D. in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University.

Fulden Buyukozturk, PhD, is a Technical Evangelist at MathWorks with a focus on computational biology products. Before joining MathWorks, she worked as a Research Assistant in the Advanced Drug Delivery Research Laboratory at Northeastern University where she mechanistically studied and mathematically modeled lipid based drug delivery systems for the oral delivery of hydrophobic drug compounds. Fulden holds a Ph.D degree in chemical engineering from Northeastern University and a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Istanbul Technical University.