The Principle of Rational Design of Drug Combination and Personalized Therapy Based on Network Pharmacology

Network Pharmacology attempts to model the effects of drug action by simultaneously modulating multiple components in a gene network. However, the theoretical basis for this new concept is still in its infancy and the process by which we translate network modeling to clinical application remains indirect. In this chapter, we try to outline the principles of rational designs for drug combination and personalized therapy based on network pharmacology by deciphering several milestone examples. We demonstrate that the network, which characterizes the dependency or joint dependency between genes and disease phenotype, is the key battle map for rational drug combinations and design of personalized therapy. We also tentatively outline several aspects of the process which might help drive innovation in network construction and shape the future development of network pharmacology applications.