To advance current biostatistical analysis towards mechanism-based models to uncover causal relationships over time, POINT partner BioFi is developing technologies for virtual tissue twins. This includes EndoGenicsTM, a novel simulation engine that integrates different biological mechanisms into one framework and efficiently resolves the different speeds of such mechanisms. This allows to natively simulate common data structures, like Reactome pathways, and accelerates calculations as it is not constrained to the fastest mechanism but can resolve the dynamics over longer time steps.
To accelerate the building process of models, which are then simulated with EndoGenicsTM, BioFi has developed a first prototype called EndoPathwaysTM. EndoPathwaysTM is integrated with the open-source database Reactome and enables users to seamlessly import pathways of interest. This could be for example a list of differentially expressed genes or enriched pathways stemming from prior bioinformatics analyses. Pathways can then be modified, expanded and connected in a state-of-the-art user interface.
Together, EndoGenicsTM and EndoPathwaysTM uniquely combine bioinformatic and pattern recognition approaches with mechanistic-modelling that will allow the rapid development of models which are the basis for simulations to virtually test hypotheses, experiment and investigate phenotypic outcomes of in-silico induced perturbations at scale and with speed. These technologies promise to design better experiments to save resources and time and eventually to be used as prognostic tools within clinical settings. Besides, this innovation supports POINT’s goal of uncovering disease mechanisms by enabling dynamic simulations to identify causal links and improve clinical insights.
