Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have launched the Drug Gene Interaction Database, a search engine for drugs that target genes linked to cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases. The database, which brings together data from 15 publicly available databases in three continents, catalogs around 14,000 drug-gene interactions. Such data is becoming increasingly available as gene sequencing grows in popularity, and the database’s designers hoped to collect all the actionable drug-gene interaction research in one place.
They also left plenty of room for future research: the database includes drugs that have not yet made it through clinical trials, and genes that are good candidates for future pharmacological research. Although physicians can use the database, it is intended for research purposes and does not recommend treatments.
