Recent IDG News/Events
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2023-02-07: e-IDG Symposium: The Spring 2023 series of e-IDG Symposium kicks-off on February 7, 2023 with presentations on the Understudied Protein Initiative. The speakers will be Dr. Georg Kustatscher, PhD (The University of Edinburgh) and Dr. Juri Rappsilber, PhD (Technical University of Berlin and Wellcome Centre Cell Biology, Edinburgh). And they will present on the "Understudied proteins initiative - tackling annotation bias by proteomics". To Register: https://e-idg-symposium-series-feb072023.eventbrite.com |Read More|
- 2021-11-30: IDG Digital Tool Fest 2021:
IDG is hosting the first IDG DIGITAL TOOL FEST on Tuesday, November 30th with an exciting line-up of 10-minute demonstrations. The presented tools were developed within the IDG consortium covering mechanisms for exploring Drugs and their gene Targets within the context of information extracted from text-mining, expression data, and signaling pathways. The tools offer users the ability to construct their own specialized queries to access information programmatically. Register here: https://hsc-unm.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEpfuGqqTooG9DC2YjXf5ah72tBXPcOGLaS |Read More|
- 2021-08-10: FASEB Science Research Conference:
Dr. Lily Jan, UCSF, and Dr. Bryan Roth, UNC, are organizing “The Understudied Druggable Proteome Conference” as part of the FASEB series (#UCP21). This conference is focused on exploring the understudied druggable proteome and will bring together pharmacologists, chemical biologists, biochemists, physiologists, and system biologists. The keynote lecture will be given by Dr. Ardem Patapoutian, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Scripps Research Insistute. This virtual conference will take place August 10-12, 2021.
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- 2021-03-16: The inaugural session of the IDG e-Symposium Series will take place on Tuesday, March 16th, 2021. It showcase two talks on the theme of Informatics platforms and Drug Discovery. Invited speaker: Dr. Ian Dunham, Director of Open Targets at EMBL-EBI, "Identifying and prioritising drug targets with the Open Targets Platform and Open Targets Genetics". IDG speaker: Dr. Tudor Oprea, PI for KMC and RDOC, "Illuminating the Druggable Genome: Drugs, Targets, Phenotypes and Diseases". Register here: https://idg-e-symposium-series-march162021.eventbrite.com |Read More|
- NEW!! IDG awardee Dr. Tudor Opera was featured in a news article for Rare Disease Day. The article highlights how the IDG program can help better understand and treat rare diseases.
- 04/22/2020 - IDG Newsletter Vol. 8
- 2019-11-15: Finding Targets for Drug Discovery
A joint symposium hosted by Open Targets and Illuminating the Druggable Genome consortium highlighting their work to expand knowledge and experimental data to enable new targets in drug discovery.
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- Go To IDG News and Events
Knowledge Management Centers (NIH RFA-RM-16-024)
Main focus for KMC is to develop a platform to aggregate and integrate data from various sources to illuminate knowledge that together with machine learning algorithms and expert curation could inspire scientists to seek and explore new associations within the human proteome.

T.I. Oprea (UNM)
KMC grant at UNM is led by Dr. Tudor Oprea and includes collaborations with Dr. Lars Juhl Jensen’s lab at NNFCPR and at EMBL-EBI with Dr. Andrew Leach as their Group Lead. Work from UNM includes the development of TCRD, the main database supporting Pharos, and appropriate visualization tools, such as TINx.

NCATS
As a partner with the KMC, NCATS is developing and implementing PHAROS as the User Interface Portal to access all the integrated data, metadata and annotation collected into TCRD and via tools from ISMMS.

A. Leach (EMBL)
EMBL-EBI has developed tools for automated extraction and expert curation of medicinal chemistry data. The group led by A. Leach has extracted pertinent target-chemical pairs from the patent literature and late-stage drug development, as well as the clinical candidate literature.

L.J. Jensen (NNFCPR)
Work by Dr. Lars Juhl Jensen has resulted in improved text-mining technology that is applied to scientific literature for scoring how well studied each target protein may be and to support target prioritization. This text-mining platform also helps provide tissue and disease associations for the targets.

A. Ma'ayan (ISMMS)
The KMC at ISMMS is led by Dr. Avi Ma’ayan. Through systematic data integration and application of machine learning methods, the Ma'ayan Lab is filling knowledge gaps about the understudied IDG targets of interest. The Harmonizome which some of it is incorporated into Pharos, provides access to all integrated data and methods.
DRGC – Data and Resource Generation Centers (NIH RFA-RM-16-026)
The objective of the DRGCs is to further illuminate understudied targets in the three main druggable protein families: G-protein coupled receptors, ion channels, and protein kinases. Their experimental workflows incorporate multiple robust assays on cellular basis of target action and extends to animal models. Data and Resources generated are disseminated via RDOC.

B.L. Roth (UNC)
B. Shoichet (UCSF)
GPCR
Collaborative work by Dr. Bryan Roth and Dr. Brian Shoichet focuses on illuminating the druggable GPCR-ome by a two-pronged approach of empirical screening of drugs followed by computational screening against modeled structures of the GPCR to produce optimized lead compounds. Their work has led to discovery of molecule “ogerin” binding to previously orphaned GPR68.
M.T. McManus (UCSF)
Ion Channels
Dr. Michael T. McManus together with Dr. Lily Jan leads a group researchers from UCSF and UCD focused on illuminating Ion Channels by utilizing CRISPR technology to map expression profiles, assess channel activities, develop antibodies, and generate new mouse lines.

G.L. Johnson (UNC)
Kinases
Dr. Gary L. Johnson has established a network of collaborators; Dr. Shawn Gomez (UNC), Dr. Ben Major (UNC), Dr. Tim Willson (SGC), Dr. Reid Townsend (WU), and Dr. Peter Sorger (HMS), to tackle the illumination of function of the understudied druggable kinome. Their work includes technologies of Multiplex Inhibitor Beads (MIB) / Mass Spectrometry (MS) to identify kinase activation status in response to perturbants, and applies results to model cell lines and patient derived xenographs.
RDOC - Resource Dissemination and Outreach Center (NIH RFA-RM-16-025)
RDOC serves as a hub for exposing the outcomes from the IDG be it via dissemination of resources and data generated by the DRGC or training public on utility of knowledge accumulated by the KMC. The mission for RDOC is to highlight and expose the works by IDG in a manner that is enduring and fruitful for further scientific discovery.

S.C. Schürer (UofMiami)
The RDOC grant at U of Miami is led by Dr. Stephan Schürer. Work from his group will focus on dissemination of the resources generated from the DRGC by stewarding implementation of metadata standards for IDG and developing a Resource Management System (RMS) capable of a variety of data and resources.

T.I. Oprea & L.A. Sklar (UNM)
The RDOC collaboration extends to UNM. Dr. Larry Sklar heads the Management and Administration Core (MAC), which support and coordinates across the entire IDG Consortium. Dr. Tudor Oprea leads IDG outreach to other consortia or groups and develops training programs for PHAROS and informatics tools.
News/Events
- 04/22/2020 - IDG Newsletter Vol. 8
- 02/29/2020 - IDG Newsletter Vol. 7
- 01/31/2020 - IDG Newsletter Vol. 6
- 11/27/2019 - IDG Newsletter Vol. 5
- 10/16/2019 - IDG Newsletter Vol. 4
- 09/13/2019 - IDG Newsletter Vol. 3
- 08/22/2019 - IDG Newsletter Vol. 2
- 07/23/2019 - IDG Newsletter Vol.1