Kenji Mizuguchi
National Institute of Biomedical Innovation, 7-6-8 Asagi-Saito, Ibaraki-City, Osaka, 567-0085, Japan

ABSTRACT

We have recently developed TargetMine, an integrated data warehouse for assisting drug discovery (http://targetmine.nibio.go.jp) and proposed an interactive method for target prioritization [1]. Target Mine and other computational biology techniques have been applied to specific drug discovery projects, such as hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and chronic inflammatory diseases, and led to several novel discoveries. For example, we predicted the human gene alpha-enolase (ENO1) to be a novel regulator of HCV replication and release. We have verified this hypothesis experimentally and proposed ENO1 as a potential novel target for Hepatitis C [2]. Once a specific target has been identified, we can also apply a range of computational tools to predict its structure, function and interaction (for example, using our PSIVER method [3]) and design effective therapeutic strategies. In my talk, I will describe some of these computational methods with specific applications. Read More…