Systems Pharmacology and Personalized Medicine
4.0
creditsAverage Course Rating
We have moved beyond the 'one-size-fits-all' era of medicine. Individuals are different, their diseases are different, and their responses to drugs are different too. This variability is not just from person to person; heterogeneity is observed even between tumors within the same person, and between sites within the same tumor. These levels of variability among the human population must be accounted for to improve patient outcomes and the efficiency of clinical trials. Some of the ways in which this is being explored include: drugs are being developed hand-in-hand with the tests needed to determine whether or not they will be effective; tumor fragments excised from patients are being cultured in the lab for high-throughput testing of drugs and drug combinations; data-rich assays such as genomics and proteomics identify thousands of potentially significant differences between individuals; and computational models are being used to predict which therapies will work for which patients. This course will focus on the applications of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics to simulating the effects of various drugs across a heterogeneous population of diseased individuals. Such computational approaches are needed to harness and leverage the vast amounts of data and provide insight into the key differences that determine drug responsiveness. These approaches can also explore the temporal dynamics of disease and treatment, and enable the modification of treatment during recovery. Most of the assignments in this course involve some coding and visualization of data (we use Matlab and R), and students undertake a project to simulate a drug or other treatment of their choice. Recommended background: 110.201 Linear Algebra, 110.302 Differential Equations, and 553.311 Probability and Statistics (or equivalent).
Spring 2015
Professor: Feilim Macgabhann
The best aspects of this course were the knowledgeable professor and interesting topics. Students also enjoyed the manageable workload. Students felt that the assignments were not evenly distributed throughout the semester and that the course was disorganized. Suggestions for improvement included having more consistent and timely feedback on assignments, having more frequent but shorter assignments to complete, and having more engaging and interactive lectures. Prospective students should be self-motivated and attend al lectures. Students should also be very comfortable with MATLAB and differential equations.