The $2.1 million grant was awarded to three professors by the National Institute of Health, according to an IU news release. The model will be of acetaminophen-induced liver failure and is considered the first step by the NIH in developing new technologies capable of predicting the toxicity of therapeutic agents as well as environmental toxins.
The study will also work toward reducing the use of animals in toxicity studies, according to the release.
The professors working on the study are Director of IU’s Biocomplexity Institute James Glazier; James Klaunig, an IU School of Public Health-Bloomington environmental health professor, and IU School of Medicine professor of nephrology Kenneth Dunn.
Each researcher will lead teams, two of which will focus on experimentation with the last team focusing on modeling, according to the release.
“Multiscale models of biological and behavioral systems can be used as important tools to address a range of biomedical, biological, behavioral, environmental and clinical problems,” Glazier said in the release. “And they inherently provide a fundamental infrastructure for understanding and predicting biological and environmental processes, diseases, and human and organizational behavior patterns and outcomes.”
The research is an extension of the Interagency Modeling and Analysis Group, which is a conglomerate of six federal agencies that work to promote scientific partnerships focused on increasing the influence of multiscale modeling, according to the University.
The research is focused on simulating the liver because it’s a key organ in many toxicological, pharmacological, normal and disease processes. The toxin used will be acetaminophen because it’s the most commonly used over-the-counter pain reliever and fever reducer in the U.S. More than 25 billion doses of the drug are sold annually, and it has been available since 1960, according to the University.
Kathrine Schulze
