BIOBASE to Coordinate EU-backed Project to Develop Technology for Studying Mechanisms of Disease

BIOBASE, a provider of knowledge solutions for the life sciences industry, have received a European Union research contract to develop innovative technology to analyze complex disease mechanisms.

The three-year, 3 million Euro project, called Net2Drug, will be coordinated by BIOBASE and developed as a collaboration with several international participants. The project's goal is to create a sophisticated “toolbox” integrating cutting edge bioinformatics, chemoinformatics, and experimental methods to identify potential therapeutic targets.

“Understanding the mechanism of disease is the key to rationalizing drug development. Net2Drug will provide a knowledge-based approach for identifying critical components in the gene regulatory network that accounts for a specific disease,” explains Prof. Edgar Wingender, President and CSO of BIOBASE, “This approach will enable researchers to confidently select promising drug targets and efficiently identify chemical compounds directed against these targets”.

Dr. Alexander Kel, Senior Vice President Research & Development at BIOBASE and project coordinator adds: “Net2Drug will integrate different ‘omics’ datasets such as proteomics and genomics into cohesive networks to facilitate comprehensive understanding of complex human pathologies. Proof-of-concept will be given by applying our technology on certain tumor types, in particular breast cancer.”