Our Portfolio

Rancho Biosciences

Tatiana Khasanova, PhD |

Rancho Biosciences

Tatiana Khasanova, PhD |

Repositioning of existing drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer disease using systems biology approaches and effective knowledge management open source platform

(300 WORDS MAX.) The shortest path to introduce a new drug that can treat Alzheimer's disease is to repurpose an existing drug that has been tried in humans for a different indication. We use a systems biology approach to identify the drugs suitable for repositioning. Briefly, we use network reconstruction and existing knowledge bases to identify AD's novel and putative targets. We supplement our approach with the analysis of data available through public repositories, such as ADNI study, GEO or ArrayExpress studies. After additional research and screening the existing drugs are recommended for repositioning into AD indication. In order to take full advantage of the existing prior knowledge and data we will introduce an open source platform called tranSMART (a translational research platform). Curation and loading of publicly available datasets into this knowledge management platform will achieve value of providing data for the current project and a long term value of providing access to curated, conveniently organized data (ADNI study, a few hand-selected GEO and ArrayExpress studies) to ADDF researchers, partners, and collaborators. In addition, any data set generated at ADDF (or by partners), including SNP, gene expression, proteomic, phenotype, medical history or clinical data can be added to this repository in the future.