A new database that matches drugs to illnesses based on how human genes respond to the medications may speed the discovery of new therapies. The Web-based tool, developed in a collaboration between two universities, has already revealed promising leads for treating cancers.
The system, called the Connectivity Map, was developed by researchers at the Broad Institute, a joint project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. It works like an Internet search engine, said Justin Lamb, a program scientist at the institute. Users can, for example, submit a list of genetic changes associated with a particular illness. The program will return a list of drugs ranked by how closely their effects match the changes needed to return the abnormal cells to a normal pattern of genetic activity. See The Chronicle’s full coverage.
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