Section: Application Domains

Safety pharmacology

The problem of safety pharmacology can be summarized as follows: given a molecule which is a candidate to become a drug, is its use dangerous due to side effects? Among all the different problems to be addressed, one of the most relevant questions in pharmacology is cardio-toxicity (see [58]). More precisely, the objective is to determine whether or not a molecule alters in a significant way the normal functioning of the cardiac cells. To answer these questions, the CiPA initiative promotes the introduction of novel techniques and their standardisation (see [50]). One of the proposed tests of the CiPA panel is to measure the the electrical activity using Micro-Electrodes Array: these are microchips that record the electrical activity of an ensemble of cells. The task is to infer the impact of a drug on the ionic currents of each cell based on the electrical signal measured (electrograms) and, in perspective, to be able to assess whether a molecule can induce arrhythmia (see [49]).