The search engine, called the Drug Gene Interaction Database, includes 2,600 genes and 6,300 drugs that target them to make up 14,000 drug-gene interactions. An additional 6,700 genes are also included in the database because of the potential for finding a matching drug that interacts with them.
Before this innovation, researchers and clinicians sorted through clinical trial results, scientific studies and other sources of information one at a time to find the right information that could help them treat a patient. Now, these interactions are easy to investigate all in one place.
The database isn’t complete with either all possible drugs or genes. “There are genes that we haven’t yet found out their uses for, and the drug side needs more to target,” says Malachi. But this is the first time that known interactions have been put together in one database.
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