Microvi and Nexilico Develop Powerful Computational Platform for Gut Microbiome funded by NIH
Under a National Institute of Health (NIH) grant awarded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), Microvi, Nexilico, and their research partners have developed a first-of-its-kind predictive computational platform focused on the gut microbiome and its interaction with therapeutics.
The in silico platform reduces the cost and timeframe of drug development by reducing the need for iterative pre-clinical experiments and better directing clinical trials, while increasing the effectiveness of the therapeutics themselves. Additionally, the platform increases the safety of pharmaceuticals by evaluating the mechanisms of toxicity as they may differ from individual-to-individual. This novel platform has the potential to become an essential tool in personalizing the prescription of drug types and doses for specific therapeutics.
“We are excited to apply Microvi’s microbiology platform for application in the pharmaceutical industry, driving innovation for processes and increased safety and effectiveness for individuals,” said Ameen Razavi, Chief Innovation Officer.
The human gut microbiome has become a primary focus of therapeutic research. The gut microbiome can be a determining factor in the way drugs are metabolized within the body, which affects patients’ therapeutic response. However, despite extensive progress in gut microbiome research, there has been limited success in leveraging personalized omics data to explore the dynamics of gut microbiome in interacting with therapeutics.
The computational platform models individual components of a complex system as well as the rules governing their behavior to predict emergent behaviors of the system. It is unique in its ability to incorporate personalized omics data to develop a comprehensive model of the human gut microbiome, and ultimately improve the effectiveness of drug design and development.
This work was funded by grant GM130228 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).