Wednesday 25 July 2012

A Brand New Algorithm Assists Scientists to Know Gene and Drug Interactions


Scientists from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have made a new computational method that could make it easier and simpler for scientists to recognize and prioritize genes, drug targets, and methods for repositioning drugs which are already in the marketplace. By mining huge datasets more plainly and efficiently, scientists should be able to better understand gene-gene, protein-protein, and drug/side-effect interactivity. The brand new algorithm also will help scientists recognize fellow scientists along with whom they could collaborate.

Led by Avi Ma'ayan, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Neil Clark, PhD a postdoctoral fellow within the Ma'ayan laboratory, the group of investigators utilized the new algorithm to construct 15 several types of gene-gene networks. Additionally they discovered novel connections between drugs and negative effects, and constructed a collaboration network that connected Mount Sinai medical investigators based on their own past publishing’s.

Dr. Ma'ayan said: "The algorithm makes it effortless to build networks from data. Once high dimensional and complex data is converted to networks, we are able to understand the results better and find new and notable relationships, and focus on the essential elements of the results."

The group diagnosed one million medical documents of affected individuals to build a network that connects commonly co-prescribed drugs, generally co-occurring negative effects, and of course the relationships between negative effects and combinations of drugs. They discovered that reported negative effects may not be attributable to the drugs, but by a separate condition of the individual that could be unrelated towards the drugs. Additionally they looked at 53 cancer drugs and connected them to 32 severe side-effects. When chemotherapy was coordinated with cancer drugs that are effective through cell signaling, there is a powerful link to cardiovascular related adverse effects. These findings can benefit in post-marketing surveillance overall safety of approved drugs.

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