chemotherapeutics

Cardiotoxicity is unfortunately a common side effect of many modern chemotherapeutic agents. The mechanisms that underlie these detrimental effects on heart muscle, however, remain unclear. The Drug Toxicity Signature Generation Center at ISMMS aims to address this unresolved issue by providing a bridge between molecular changes in cells and the prediction of pathophysiological effects. I will discuss ongoing work in which we use next-generation sequencing to quantify changes in gene expression that occur in cardiac myocytes after they are treated with potentially toxic chemotherapeutic agents. I will focus in particular on the computational pipeline we are developing that integrates sophisticated sequence alignment, statistical and network analysis, and dynamical mathematical models to develop novel predictions about the mechanisms underlying drug-induced cardiotoxicity.