The Research Group “COmputational Modeling in systems BIomediciNE” (COMBINE for short) of the University of Catania, Department of Drug and Health Sciences, deals with computational biomedicine.
COMBINE group has developed the Universal Immune System Simulator (UISS) that is a computational framework that makes use of a multi-scale, multi-organ, three-dimensional agent based simulator of the immune system, with an attached module able to simulate the dynamics of a biological pathway at the molecular level, named COmputational StrategieS for the analysis of Biological pAthways and moleculaR surface/binding (CrOSSBAR).
UISS was applied to:
- make predictions about the outcome of specific vaccination strategies;
- optimize vaccine dosage for the best result in terms of efficacy and minimization of adverse effects, in a personalized fashion;
- vaccine formulation discovery (both at cellular and molecular level);
- optimize drug combinations to obtain maximum efficacy;
- discover molecular and/or cellular targets to overcome drug resistance;