An in vivo database model for pharmacological and physiological dosage for experimental animals

Abstract

We developed a database compiling in vivo doses of compounds for various activities in certain animal species. The related database covers almost 100 years of experiments. The conceptual scheme of the database was created using concepts of the entity-relationship modeling principles. Using published references, dosages and their effects on laboratory animals were entered as data. As the next stage of our work, we have started to examine the available literature to information about the experimental dosages of various drugs used in other studies. The database provides various interfaces, including graphical-user interfaces and interfaces for Internet access. The database will be useful as a knowledge infrastructure for researchers who have to perform dose-scan experiments for a specific pharmacological activity. The basic benefit of that knowledge infrastructure is that it will enable virtual pharmacological experiments that will be considerably less expensive than conventional laboratory experiments, because the number of animals used and the number of dose-scan experiments will be greatly reduced. The developed database will also be helpful for new drug development studies and for responding to queries about animal types, drugs used, drug interactions, and results