A Liver-Centric Multiscale Modeling Framework for Xenobiotics.

We describe a multi-scale, liver-centric in silico modeling framework for acetaminophen pharmacology and metabolism. We focus on a computational model to characterize whole body uptake and clearance, liver transport and phase I and phase II metabolism. We do this by incorporating sub-models that span three scales; Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling of acetaminophen uptake and distribution at the whole body level, cell and blood flow modeling at the tissue/organ level and metabolism at the sub-cellular level.

The cell behavior ontology: describing the intrinsic biological behaviors of real and model cells seen as active agents.

Motivation: Currently, there are no ontologies capable of describing both the spatial organization of groups of cells and the behaviors of those cells. The lack of a formalized method for describing the spatiality and intrinsic biological behaviors of cells makes it difficult to adequately describe cells, tissues and organs as spatial objects in living tissues, in vitro assays and in computational models of tissues.

Results: We have developed an OWL-2 ontology to describe the intrinsic physical and biological characteristics of cells and tissues.

Design and implementation of a wireless (Bluetooth) four channel bio-instrumentation amplifier and digital data acquisition device with user-selectable gain, frequency, and driven reference.

A portable, multi-purpose Bio-instrumentation Amplifier and Data AcQuisition device (BADAQ) capable of measuring and transmitting EMG and EKG signals wirelessly via Bluetooth is designed and implemented. Common topologies for instrumentation amplifiers and filters are used and realized with commercially available, low-voltage, high precision operational amplifiers. An 8-bit PIC microcontroller performs 10-bit analog-to-digital conversion of the amplified and filtered signals and controls a Bluetooth transceiver capable of wirelessly transmitting the data to any Bluetooth enabled device.