title: Prediction of drug degradants using DELPHI: an expert system for focusing knowledge.
abstract: DELPHI is an expert system that has been developed to predict possible degradants of pharmaceutical compounds under stress testing conditions. It has been programmed with the objective of finding relevant degradation pathways, identifying degradant structures, and providing tools to the analytical chemist to assist in degradation identification. The system makes degradant predictions based on the chemical structure of the drug molecule and precedent from a broad survey of the literature. A description of DELPHI's treatment of molecular perception is described as are many features of the heuristic degradation rules it uses to capture and apply chemical degradation knowledge. DELPHI's utility for capturing institutional knowledge is discussed in relation to an analysis of degradation prediction results for 250 molecules of diverse chemical structure collected over 5 years of use. As such, it provides a reliable, convenient, and rapid tool for evaluating potential pathways of chemical instability of pharmaceuticals.
authors.affiliation: Research Formulations Department, Pfizer Global Research and Development, 2800 Plymouth Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105, USA.
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Pole
authors.forename: Howard Y
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Ando
authors.forename: Sean T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Murphy
mesh_terms: D004355:Drug Stability; D015394:Molecular Structure; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software; D012985:Software Design
chemical_list: D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations