(Press-News.org) BALTIMORE, December 11, 2014 - Insilico Medicine along with scientists from Vision Genomics and Howard University shed light on AMD disease, introducing the opportunity for eventual diagnostic and treatment options.
The scientific collaboration between Vision Genomics, Inc., Howard University, and Insilico Medicine, Inc., has revealed encouraging insight on the AMD disease using an interactome analysis approach. Resources such as publicly available gene expression data, Insilico Medicine's original algorithm OncoFinderTM, and AMD MedicineTM from Vision Genomics allowed discovery of signaling pathways activated during AMD disease.
"We are thrilled to collaborate with Alex Zhavaronkov and Evgeny Makarev, and their team at InSilico Medicine. Big Data analysis is part of the future of medicine, and with our technique of signaling pathway activation analysis, we will decipher the genetic network alterations that lead to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and eventually human aging itself", said Antonei Benjamin Csoka, PhD, CEO of Vision Genomics, LLC, and Assistant Professor at Howard University.
The research publication titled "Pathway activation profiling reveals new insights into Age-related Macular Degeneration and provides avenues for therapeutic interventions" was accepted by one of aging research's top-rated journals "Aging", detailing these findings and methodology. This study not only validates the efficacy of interactome analysis within aging, but also allows the investigation of cellular populations within AMD models.
"We are happy to collaborate with Antonei Benjamin Csoka's teams at both Vision Genomics and Howard University on this exciting project. Coupling Big Data with advanced signaling pathway activation analysis may help find new therapeutic approaches for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a disease that holds many keys to understanding human aging", said Evgeny Makarev, PhD, Director of Aging Research at Insilico Medicine.
On December 9th Insilico Medicine, Inc announced the appointment of 2013 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Michael Levitt, to its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Levitt's background in computational modeling focused on understanding protein folding processes and molecular interactions, may turn to be extremely valuable for compound discovery related to AMD and other age-related diseases. The concept utilized by Insilico Medicine involves identifying the difference between several signaling states on a tissue-specific level, be it health and disease, or young and old, and evaluating a large number of drugs and drug combinations that can modulate the difference using advanced parametric and machine-learned algorithms. "To create more value from our predictions we will need to identify compounds that are even more effective than top-scoring drugs and that would require multi-scale modeling of macromolecules, the field pioneered by Dr. Michael Levitt ", said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, CEO of Insilico Medicine, Inc. Insilico Medicine continues to be represented from top institutions, including Stanford University, Johns Hopkins University, and New York University. With this broad range of expertise, Insilico and its collaborators will pursue AMD disease further and utilize the newly discovered activated pathways as a foundation.
INFORMATION:
About Insilico Medicine
Insilico Medicine is a Baltimore-based company utilizing advances in genomics and big data analysis for in silico drug discovery and drug repurposing for aging and age-related diseases. The company uses the GeroScope™ and OncoFinder™ packages for aging and cancer research. Through internal expertise and extensive collaborations with brilliant scientists, institutions, and highly credible pharmaceutical companies, Insilico Medicine seeks to discover new drugs and drug combinations for personalized preventative medicine. For more information on Insilico Medicine, Inc. please visit http://www.insilicomedicine.com.
Please contact:
Michael Petr
Market Research Associate
michael.petr@insilicomedicine.com
How much protection the annual flu shot provides depends on how well the vaccine (which is designed based on a "best guess" for next season's flu strain) matches the actually circulating virus. However, it also depends on the strength of the immune response elicited by the vaccine. A study published on December 11th in PLOS Pathogens reports that genetic variants in a gene called IL-28B influence influenza vaccine responses.
Adrian Egli, from the University of Basel, Switzerland, and colleagues started with blood samples from organ transplant patients. Such patients are ...
New circulating metabolites might allow early diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. A team of scientists from Uppsala University, Karolinska Institutet and Colorado State University have identified novel lipid-derived molecules associated with future coronary heart disease events. The study published in the journal PLOS Genetics has examined the metabolic profile of blood samples from more than 3,600 individuals that have been followed-up for up to 10 years.
Professor Erik Ingelsson and graduate student Andrea Ganna have used novel biochemical and bioinformatics approaches ...
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Conventional wisdom holds that changing the views of voters on divisive issues is difficult if not impossible -- and that when change does occur, it is almost always temporary.
But Michael LaCour, a UCLA doctoral candidate in political science, and Donald Green, a Columbia University political science professor, have demonstrated that a single conversation can go a long way toward building lasting support for a controversial social issue. In addition -- nearly as surprisingly -- the effect tends to spill over to friends and family members.
The key is putting voters ...
A new computational technique developed at The University of Texas at Austin has enabled an international consortium to produce an avian tree of life that points to the origins of various bird species. A graduate student at the university is a leading author on papers describing the new technique and sharing the consortium's findings about bird evolution in the journal Science.
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RIVERSIDE, Calif. - The absence of teeth or "edentulism" has evolved on multiple occasions within vertebrates including birds, turtles, and a few groups of mammals such as anteaters, baleen whales and pangolins. Where early birds are concerned, the fossil record is fragmentary. A question that has intrigued biologists is: Based on this fossil record, were teeth lost in the common ancestor of all living birds or convergently in two or more independent lineages of birds?
A research team led by biologists at the University of California, Riverside and Montclair State University, ...
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 11, 2014-- It's possible to lastingly persuade conservative voters to support a controversial issue like marriage for same-sex couples--and at a greatly accelerated rate compared to their neighbors--according to groundbreaking data published in this week's issue of the peer-reviewed journal Science. The 12-month study also shows how the Los Angeles LGBT Center's voter persuasion methods reduced anti-gay prejudice and may have the potential to reduce other forms of prejudice.
The independent researchers who led the study, prominent Columbia University ...
This news release is available in Danish and also Chinese on EurekAlert! Chinese.
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SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 11, 2014 - University of Utah researchers ran biochemical analysis and computer simulations of a livestock virus to discover a likely and exotic mechanism to explain the replication of related viruses such as Ebola, measles and rabies. The mechanism may be a possible target for new treatments within a decade.
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