Drug Targets – News and Features

Functional genomics can help deconvolute the link between genotype and phenotype in disease, revealing new drug targets and progressing understanding of existing drugs.

Harvard and Boston University researchers mapped the Nipah virus polymerase, a key protein for viral replication, using cryo-electron microscopy. The study identifies potential drug targets.

Two newly identified disease-causing genes, known as Bzw2 and Eif5a2, have been implicated in early prostate cancer development.

Researchers mapped HIV-1’s translation strategy, revealing RNA elements like uORFs, iORFs and an intricate frameshift site structure that regulate viral protein synthesis. These findings highlight ribosome pausing as a key mechanism.

Jakub Vašíček joined us to discuss a new bioinformatic tool – ProHap – a Python-based tool that creates custom protein sequence databases from large panels of reference human haplotypes.

UK Biobank's proteomics study will measure 5,400 proteins in 600,000 samples, tracking changes over mid-to-late life. By combining genetic, imaging and proteomic data, this initiative promises breakthroughs in disease diagnosis and drug discovery.

This article provides examples of how AI is helping to shape drug discovery, from drug design through to clinical trials.

This article examines some of the latest advances in biomarker discovery in the fields of cancer and neurodegenerative and infectious diseases and the technologies that are driving these discoveries.

The molecular mechanism has been uncovered by which zinc-dependent proteins, known as macrodomains, reverse ADP-ribosylation—a key regulatory process in cells linked to cancer and viral infections.

University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers revealed how gut microbial bile acids impact colon cancer. One bile acid slows tumor growth by supporting the FXR protein, while another accelerates cancer by inhibiting it.