STrhiPS: a new web-based tool that helps perform in silico trials on populations of hiPS cells. A few weeks ago we presented a poster at the SPS Annual Meeting and we received immediately a lot of attention. We were pleased, but not surprised: STrhiPS is a revolutionary tool to conduct in silico safety trials on a population of human-induced pluripotential stem cells, for 7 ion channels and at different concentrations.
The CiPA Paradigm foresees in preclinical drug development the integration of assessments of drug effects on multiple isolated cardiac ion channels in patch-clamp assays and the corresponding in silico reconstruction of the human ventricular action potential with cellular studies including human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) to predict the proarrhythmic liability of drug candidates.
The assessment of hiPSC-CM electrophysiological variability in cells without and with drugs by means of populations of in silico hiPSC-CMs is rapidly becoming a relevant component of the CiPA paradigm.
STrhiPS, which means Safety Trialson hiPS, is now integrated into our platform and offers great help to evaluate drug-induced arrhythmias in hiPSC-CMs. The core of STrhiPS drives on the computational model developed by Prof. Stefano Severi, Bologna University, Italy, Dr. Michelangelo Paci and Prof. Jari Hyttinen, BioMediTech, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University (Finland).
At the SPS Annual Meeting, we presented some of the results of a study performed with STrhiPS on the CiPA training set of 12 drugs that prove that this tool can support the design and interpretation of in vitro experiments.
STrhiPS is part of a wider project: the Drug Safety Suite. The Comprehensive In Vitro Proarrhythmya Assay (CiPA) initiative has the goal of increasing cardiac safety and it includes testing on 7 ionic channels instead of one and the use of Modelling and Simulation. This can lead to a huge increase of R&D costs and time in a traditional industrial setting.
Through this suite, we want to provide companies with a set of tools whose results can be crossed to increase accuracy in in silico risk assessment, to screen as early as possible drug candidates on potential cardiotoxicity liabilities, and to predict the cardiac action potential at the cellular level.
In silico testing helps identify also the drug compound safety window, through virtual screening of multiple concentrations, guiding in vitro and in vivo testing and resulting in a drastic reduction of risks and investments.
STrhiPS and the other models of the Drug Safety Suite are available on www.insilicotrials.com and we will be more than pleased to receive your feedback and/or questions.