Nov 2012
The Repurpose
29/11/12 16:01 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Fierce Biotech reported that The Broad Institute will be searching through Roche's catalogue of more than 300 failed compounds to find new possible uses for those drugs, and noted that similar drug repurposing efforts are underway at the US National Institutes of Health's National Center for Translational Science and at the UK's Medical Research Council. S. Pelech describes the excellent opportunities for repurposing the large arsenal of potent protein kinases inhibitors that has been amassing over the last decade, and mentions efforts at Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation to identify off-targets for these kinase inhibitors. (This work resulted in the recent release of the DrugKiNET SigNET KnowledgeBase in Kinetica Online.) Read More...
Early Arrival
07/11/12 13:27 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
In Lancet Neurology, a team of researchers reported a high prevelance of mutations in the presenilin 1, or PSEN1, gene linked to Alzheimer's that were apparent in 20 of 44 young adults from Colombia at least 20 years before the onset of symptoms. Apart from differences in brain structure and function between the two groups, the researchers also detected increased cerebrospinal fluid levels of amyloid beta. S. Pelech notes that in many clinical studies with Alzheimer's patients, there is actually usually a DECREASE in the level of the pathogenic 42 kDa beta-amyloid (A-beta42) protein in their CSF relative to healthy controls and patients with Parkinson's disease and progressive supra nuclear palsy. He further describes research at Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation using antibody microarrays that uncovered 36 proteins that displayed abnormal phosphorylation or expression in peripheral blood lymphocytes from Alzheimer's patients as compared to controls that were only mildly cognitively impaired or had other neurological disorders. Read More...
Mapping the Brain's 'Symphony'
06/11/12 13:25 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Francis Collins at the NIH in his new blog discussed the Human Connectome Project, an NIH-funded effort to map all the neural connections in the human brain. He noted that whereas before only an isolated region of the brain might have been analyzed, recent advances in computer science, math, imaging, and data visualization can now allow researchers to study the human brain as an entire organ. S. Pelech is astonished that "the Human Connectome Project, has set out to map the brain’s neural connections in their ENTIRETY." He questions whether the project proponents truly appreciate the scale of such as proposal and whether the knowledge gained from such an undertaking is really worth the costs. Read More...