For the first time ever, scientists are using computers and genomic information to predict new uses for existing medicines.
A National Institutes of Health-funded computational study analyzed genomic and drug data to predict new uses for medicines that are already on the market. A team led by Atul J. Butte, M.D., Ph.D., of Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif., reports its results in two articles in the Aug. 17 online issue of Science Translational Medicine.
Butte’s group focused on 100 diseases and 164 drugs. They created a computer program to search through the thousands of possible drug-disease combinations to find drugs and diseases whose gene expression patterns essentially cancelled each other out. For example, if a disease increased the activity of certain genes, the program tried to match it with one or more drugs that decreased the activity of those genes.
Below is a talk that Dr. Buttes gave recently at Packard Children’s Hospital where he explained some of the amazing work done in his lab.
Click here to read more.
Tags: biomarker, biotechnology, genomics, life science funding, NIH, PCR