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Contributions from emerging transcriptomics technologies and computational strategies for drug discovery

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Summary

Drug discovery involves various steps and is a long process being even more demanding for complex diseases such as cancer. Tumors are ensembles of subpopulations with different mutations, require very specific and effective strategies. Conventional drug screening technologies may not be adequate and efficient anymore. Drug repositioning is a useful strategy to identify new uses for previously failed drugs. High throughput and deep sequencing technologies provide valuable support by yielding enormous amounts of “-omics” data and contribute to understanding the molecular mechanisms responsible for drug action. Computational methods coupled with systems biology represent a promising step to interpret pharmacogenomic data and establish strong connections with drug discovery. Genomic variations have been found to be linked with differential drug response among individuals. Large genome wide association studies are necessary to identify reliable connections between genomic variations and drug response since personalized medicine has been accepted as an important phenomenon in the drug discovery and development process post approval.

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Abbreviations

ENCODE:

Encyclopedia of DNA elements

GWAS:

Genome wide association studies

OMIM:

Online mendelian ınheritance ın men

R&D:

Research and development

SNP:

Single nucleotide polymorphism

WES:

Whole exome sequencing

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest whatsoever.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Institute of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University of Mainz, Staudinger Weg 5, 55128, Mainz, Germany

    Onat Kadioglu & Thomas Efferth

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  1. Onat Kadioglu
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  2. Thomas Efferth
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Correspondence to Thomas Efferth.

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Kadioglu, O., Efferth, T. Contributions from emerging transcriptomics technologies and computational strategies for drug discovery. Invest New Drugs 32, 1316–1319 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10637-014-0081-x

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