QSPcc reduces bottlenecks in computational model simulations

Pub. type
Scientific paper
Pub. date
September 1, 2021
Published in
Communications Biology
Authors
Tomasoni Danilo
Paris Alessio
Giampiccolo Stefano
Reali Federico
Simoni Giulia
Marchetti Luca
Kaddi Chanchala
Neves-Zaph Susana
Priami Corrado
Azer Karim
Lombardo Rosario
Link
View on Communications Biology

Abstract

Mathematical models have grown in size and complexity becoming often computationally intractable. In sensitivity analysis and optimization phases, critical for tuning, validation and qualification, these models may be run thousands of times. Scientific programming languages popular for prototyping, such as MATLAB and R, can be a bottleneck in terms of performance. Here we show a compiler-based approach, designed to be universal at handling engineering and life sciences modeling styles, that automatically translates models into fast C code. At first QSPcc is demonstrated to be crucial in enabling the research on otherwise intractable Quantitative Systems Pharmacology models, such as in rare Lysosomal Storage Disorders. To demonstrate the full value in seamlessly accelerating, or enabling, the R&D efforts in natural sciences, we then benchmark QSPcc against 8 solutions on 24 real-world projects from different scientific fields. With speed-ups of 22000x peak, and 1605x arithmetic mean, our results show consistent superior performances.