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Resource Facility for Population Kinetics (RFPK)

Contents

• Contact Information
• Grant Number
• Research Emphasis
• Current Research
• Resource Capabilities
• References

Contact Information

University of Washington
Box 352255 AERL 241
Seattle, WA 98195-2255
http://www.rfpk.washington.edu

Principal Investigator/Contact
Paolo Vicini, Ph.D.
Box 352255 AERL 241
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-2255
Phone: 206-616-1133
Fax: 206-543-3081
vicini@u.washington.edu

Grant Number

Grant No. EB001975

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Research Emphasis

The Resource Facility for Population Kinetics (RFPK) promotes the application of integrated systems modeling in biomedical research by: providing expertise in experimental design, model development and testing, and educational programs, and developing new mathematical/statistical methods for incorporation in state-of-the-art software tools. The Administrative Core of this project is located at the University of Washington. The Resource involves four major institutions (the Universities of Washington, Pittsburgh, Western Australia and Padova), all of which contribute unique expertise to the individual projects.

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Current Research

RFPK currently focuses on the following research, service, and collaboration areas:

• Develop new modeling methodologies and use them to study biological systems. These include sophisticated applications of the inverse problem such as system deconvolution, parametric and nonparametric modeling analysis of biomedical problems, the investigation and integration of various kinds of Bayesian statistics.
  
• Specify, design, develop, test, validate and maintain new software tools incorporating cutting-edge mathematics, statistics and computer science. We are preparing to make available to the scientific community state of the art numerical software for biomedical research such as the System for Population Kinetics.
  
• Provide service to the research community through collaboration and consultation. Our list of collaborators includes worldwide renowned scientists in the fields of: intermediary metabolism, glucose-insulin regulation in normal and diabetic states; lipid metabolism, with applications in studying obesity and atherosclerosis; pharmacokinetics-pharmacodynamics, where we address key methodological questions; environmental toxicology, where models can lead to quantification of exposure; cellular biochemical networks, researching the living cell during rest and activation; parametric imaging, with applications in diabetes, cancer research and rheumatoid arthritis.
  
• Provide educational programs for the research community in systems modeling application. We will increase resource visibility within professional societies (e.g., AAPS and IEEE/EMBS) through our network of scientific collaborations.
  
• Disseminate RFPK technology and expertise via educational paradigms which integrate medicine, statistics, computer science and bioengineering in a comprehensive problem-solving approach. Our Web site is central to this scope, but other approaches that we will use are individual and group training, workshops and the establishment of freely available educational resources such as data sets and modeling tutorials.

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Resource Capabilities

Hardware

• 17 PC Pentium desktop computers
• 1 Apple Laserwriter printer
• 3 Notebook laptop computers
• 1 Brother Printer/Scanner
• 1 Macintosh laptop computer
• 1 HP 5000 DN printer
• 1 Xerox N32 printer
• 1 A/V computer projector
• 1 Beowulf Linux Red Hat (master + four nodes) multiprocessor computer cluster

Software

RFPK personnel, students and collaborators use third-party software as part of the development of design specifications for SPK, to insure that SPK and our software is responsive to the needs of the modeling community and for performing research and data analysis. RFPK provides training in the use of these tools. Internally, expertise in available tools for kinetic analysis helps RFPK researchers to develop software that is responsive to today's needs.

Service and Training

Space and computers are available for service users of RFPK on an as needed basis.

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References

(See additional references.)

1. Bies RR, Bigos K, Pollock BG. Gender differences in the pharmacokinetics and pharmcodynamics of antidepressants. J. Gend Spec Med. 2003;6(3):12-20.
2. Pillonetto G, Bell BM. Deconvolution of nonstationary physical signals: a smooth variance model for insulin secretion rate. Inverse Problems 2004;20(2):367-383.
3. Qiu R, Yao A, Vicini P, McDonald GB, Batchelder AL, Bouvier ME, Cole SL, Slattery JT. Diminishing the risk of nonrelapse mortality in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: prediction of exposure to the cyclophosphamide metabolite carboxyethylphosphoramide mustard. Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2004;76(3):270-280.
4. Bertoldo A, Sparacino G, Cobelli C. "Population" approach improves parameter estimation of kinetic models from dynamic PET data. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2004;23(3):297-306.
5. Foracchia M, Hooker A, Vicini P, Ruggeri A. PopED, a software for optimal experiment design in population kinetics. Comput Methods Programs Biomed. 2004;74(1):29-46.
6. Tannock LR, Little PJ, Tsoi C, Barrett PH, Wight TN, Chait A. Thiazolidinediones reduce the LDL binding affinity of non-human primate vascular cell proteoglycans. Diabetologia. 2004;47(5):837-843; Epub Apr 08, 2004.