Although it is well known that the duration of biological processes in-vitro systems differs from that observed in-vivo, this aspect has not been investigated. The proper identification of appropriately scaled experimental conditions can allow the extrapolation of reliable results from an in-vitro system to its in-vivo counterpart. However, to date, most allometric studies focus on the amplitude and stochasticity of metabolic processes, without considering the timing/frequency at which biological processes occur on different scales (time scaling).
We are working on in-vitro/in-vivo correlation models (IVIVC) that exploit interpolation and convolution techniques of empirical data recorded in-vivo and data extrapolated from in- silico models. In particular, our group focuses on deriving the characteristic times of lung dynamics, starting from Physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models for the identification of the characteristic times of absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of nanoparticles in lung tissue and in the main body districts, in order to optimise the construction of in-vitro models of lung alveoli.