Human Metabolism on a Computer: B
Bio-Transformer is a freely available computational tool that can predict and identify chemical, drug, pesticide, and food compound metabolites in humans and the environment.
Humans encounter a large number of chemicals in the course of one day. Provided our bodies are working optimally and under the right circumstances, we can tolerate many chemicals without adverse effects due to a function of metabolism.
Key: Human metabolism is complex and in many respects different from that of other species. Using the BioTransformer tool will help to more accurately predict how humans metabolize chemicals, rather than relying on incorrect information from animal tests.
The highlight of this tool is that it is open access and demonstrated to be similar to, if not better than, comparable commercial software. In addition, it includes small molecule metabolism by environmental microbes, which currently has not been explored in software tools of its kind. Open access tools and publications encourage scientific sharing that will lead to breakthroughs in computational modeling and machine learning in the field of molecular metabolism for safety assessment.
Djoumbou-Feunang Y, Fiamoncini J, Gil-de-la-Fuente A, et al. BioTransformer: a comprehensive computational tool for small molecule metabolism prediction and metabolite identification. J Cheminform. 2019;11:2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13321-018-0324-5