May 2021

British Skin Foundation eczema research

A new British Skin Foundation-funded paper on model-based meta-analysis of recent clinical trials for nine biological eczema drugs has recently been published.

Researcher Dr Reiko Tanaka from Imperial College London explains:

"Eczema (atopic dermatitis) patients demonstrate variability in drug response to biologic drugs. We aimed to identify what causes the patients’ variability and to investigate whether there are alternative drug targets that may work better."

 

Dr Reiko Tanaka

We developed a mathematical model that describes systems-level eczema disease pathogenesis and the mode of action of the biologics. Computational simulation of the model identified simultaneous inhibition of IL-13 and IL-22 as a promising drug target for dupilumab poor responders. The model serves as a computational platform for model-informed drug development for precision medicine.

What this research means for people with atopic dermatitis

  • Investigation on new drugs can be accelerated by a computational method as shown in this study. 

  • The results of previously clinical trials were integrated together to develop a computer model that can be considered as “virtual people with AD”.  

  • Computer simulation using the virtual people helps to identify potential new drug targets. 

Donate to more research like this    Read the paper here   

YouTube Video on the paper    What is eczema?

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