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(Correction) Has anyone had experience with High Performances' "Stella" or
"IThink" for physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modelling?
I'd appreciate hearing comparison with other (e.g., ACSL) software.
Thanks
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Basically you're comparing a Yugo (Stella) and a Ferrari (ACSL) here.
Once you go beyond a few compartments with Stella, the graphical
interface gets incredibly complicated when you take into account flow
rates, partition coefficients, etc. Yes, I know with more recent
versions of Stella you can "hide" some of the levels of complexity, but
you still need to initially insert these features before you can hide
them. The numerical integration algortithms in Stella are also more
limited than what ACSL has to offer. Based on personal experience,
BEWARE OF THE STELLA OUTPUT. If you feel compelled to use it, at the
very least, compare your results with a real differential equation
solver (as opposed to the Stella difference equation generator) before
you bet the ranch on your results. Personally, I've always felt more
comfortable writing the differential equations.
William J. Bachman, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
GloboMax LLC
7250 Parkway Drive Suite 430
Hanover, MD 21076
Main: (410) 712-9500
Phone: (410) 782-2212
Fax: (410) 712-0737
Email: bachmanw.aaa.globomax.com
www.globomax.com
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Check with Prof Ronald Sawchcuk Pharm. D U. Minn
phone 612 624 0646
sawch001.aaa.maroon.tc.umn.edu
an expert with Stella and PK
hope this helps.
Paul
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I have had no experience with iThink, but I have had experience with
Stella and ACSL. Stella is very user friendly with a nice graphical
user interface. However it does not optimize and the last time I used
it it was not available for an IBM-type PC (MAC only). The company that
makes ACSL, MGA Associates, is by far the leaders in simulation
software. ACSL is used by the auto and space industry for simulation.
It will do just about everything you need with state of the art
algorithms. The down side of ACSL is cost. I think it is quite
expensive and may be out of reach of most academics.
For PB-PK modeling I have had GREAT success with SAAM II. It has just
about everything and is inexpensive (relatively speaking). The help
line is excellent because the support personnel are all bioengineers.
The only problem I had with it was that your initial parameter estimates
have to be close to the final parameters for convergence to be assured.
Good luck,
Peter L. Bonate, Ph.D.
Hoechst Marion Roussel
Clinical Pharmacokinetics
P.O. Box 9627 (F4-M3112)
Kansas City, MO 64134
fax: 816-966-6999
phone: 816-966-3723
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A program called MLAB will also do anything you need to do with
pharmacokinetic simulations. It is very much like ACSL in it's degree of
difficulty but unlike ACSL it was MUCH MUCH MUCH more forgiving when it
runs against boundary conditions and local minima, not crashing the
system and allowing the user to adjust parameters without rebooting.
It is also cost friendly, about $2000 for a copy. It runs on Unix,
windows and Macs. http://www.civilized.com A full test program good for
a month is about $100 and comes with manuals.
Susan Shoaf
shoaf.-at-.clinpharm.niaaa.nih.gov | National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
I don't speak for NIAAA, | Alcoholism
that's for the PR office. |
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Dear PK folks,
MLAB is indeed a very robust program, a simple but powerful interface.
I think that it really is a tool mainly for real programmers/expert
users. I also think there may be some confusion between the product
Simusolv, which a lot of PK people have used in the past, and ACSL
Optimize. Simusolv was built and maintained by Dow Chemical, and never
really supported well. In fact, they stopped supporting it altogether
about 2 years ago. MGA (the makers of ACSL, ACSL BioMed and ACSL Tox)
picked up this product and have greatly increased the user friendlyness,
as well as the robustness of the algorithms. This really is now a commercial
quality product, doesn't crash, good support, user friendly etc. I of
course may be biased since I recently accepted a position at MGA.
Mark Sale M.D. marksale.-a-.mga.com
MGA Software 978-369-5115
200 Baker Ave
Concord MA 01742
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Dan Cui from MGA wished me to clarify that their ACSL product is NOT
their ACSL bioMED product.
I have no knowledge of the workings of ACSL bioMED.
Thanks.
Susan Shoaf
shoaf.-at-.clinpharm.niaaa.nih.gov | National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
I don't speak for NIAAA, | Alcoholism
that's for the PR office. |
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A little paper on glucose kinetics, written by Dr. Gary Knott (founder
Civilized Software and developer of MLAB), appears in the current issue of
HMS Beagle (http://hmsbeagle.com/) at the URL:
(http://biomednet.com/hmsbeagle/1997/23/booksoft/softsol.htm).
The full title is "Minimal Models for Glucose and Insulin Kinetics with
MLAB" and presents some examples of the syntax etc. for this program. It
does not include any simulations, but the coding would be similar. A second
application paper (from the Civilized Software web site) on pharmacological
modeling (http://www.civilized.com/mlabexamples/Pharm.htmld/)
may also give some useful info on the program.
Regards,
Dylan
Software Editor, HMS Beagle
*HMS Beagle, a BioMedNet publication, is a webzine for biomedical
researchers. It requires a FREE membership login step.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Dylan A. Bulseco, Ph.D. | bulseco.aaa.os.com *
*Department of Pharmacology | bulseco.aaa.sci.wfbr.edu *
*UMASS Medical School | http://hmsbeagle.com *
*Worcester Foundation Campus | www.wfbr.edu/~bulseco *
*222 Maple Ave, Shrewsbury, MA 01545 | ph/FAX(508)793-0945/842-9632 *
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