The completion of human genome sequencing efforts over a decade ago has opened new avenues for diagnosis and treatment of diverse diseases. The three Billion base pairs of the human genome hold the key to understanding Biology, disease susceptibility, response to therapy and toxicology. The information content of DNA provides a framework to deliver targeted drugs, provide a basis for DNA computing and for archival digital media storage. Bioinformatics, a highly interdisciplinary field across Science, Medicine and Computer Science has developed into a mature field with numerous datamining tools freely available in the World Wide Web. Prior to the laboratory validation of the chosen genes from the databases, increasingly, Bioinformatics and System’s Biology approaches are being used to identify smart leads for treatment and diagnosis of diseases. Mining the disease and knowledge oriented databases as well as the Genome wide association studies-related databases is enabling the discovery of druggable targets and repurposed drugs for novel therapy.
My laboratory is using Bioinformatics approaches to discover novel druggable gene targets for the treatment of diverse diseases including autoimmune diseases, cancer, diabetes, infectious diseases including HIV, Ebola viruses and neurodegenerative diseases. Currently, research in the laboratory uses exclusively computer-based approaches.
