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Drug-Drug Interaction Network

Run the Drug-Drug Interaction Network MicroSim Fullscreen

About This MicroSim

This MicroSim visualizes a drug-drug interaction (DDI) network where each node is a drug, colored by therapeutic class, and each edge represents a known interaction between two drugs. Edge colors indicate interaction severity: red for severe, orange for moderate, and yellow for mild.

Visual Encoding

  • Node colors — Drugs are grouped by therapeutic class (e.g., cardiovascular, oncology, CNS, anti-infective)
  • Red edges — Severe interactions (contraindicated or potentially life-threatening)
  • Orange edges — Moderate interactions (may require dose adjustment or monitoring)
  • Yellow edges — Mild interactions (clinically minor)
  • Click any drug to highlight all its interactions and see details

Why This Matters

Drug-drug interactions are a major cause of adverse drug events, especially in patients taking multiple medications (polypharmacy). Network analysis helps pharmacologists identify:

  • Drugs with many severe interactions (high-risk nodes)
  • Drug pairs that should never be co-prescribed
  • Safer therapeutic alternatives within the same drug class

How to Use

  1. Click any drug node to highlight its interactions and see severity details
  2. Hover for drug name and therapeutic class
  3. Drag and zoom to explore the network
  4. Look for red edges — these represent the most dangerous drug combinations

Iframe Embed Code

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        height="540"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Grade Level

College introductory bioinformatics

Duration

15-20 minutes

Prerequisites

  • Basic understanding of pharmacology (drugs and their targets)
  • Concept of adverse drug reactions
  • Familiarity with network visualization

Activities

  1. Exploration (5 min): Find the drug with the most severe (red) interactions. Why might some drugs have more interactions than others?
  2. Severity Analysis (5 min): Click several drugs and categorize their interactions by severity. Are severe interactions more common between drugs of the same or different therapeutic classes?
  3. Discussion (5 min): A patient is prescribed 5 medications. How would you use this network to assess their polypharmacy risk? What strategies could reduce the risk?
  4. Assessment (5 min): Answer the reflection questions below.

Assessment

  1. What factors make a drug-drug interaction "severe" versus "mild"?
  2. Why are drugs with many interactions (hub nodes) particularly important in clinical decision support?
  3. How could a DDI network be integrated into electronic health records to prevent adverse events?
  4. What is polypharmacy, and why does the risk of DDIs increase with the number of co-prescribed medications?

References

  1. Drug interaction — Wikipedia
  2. Polypharmacy — Wikipedia
  3. Adverse drug reaction — Wikipedia
  4. Pharmacovigilance — Wikipedia