Investigating new approaches to drug development using human genetics

Developing new drugs is an important part of improving our ability to treat disease. To do this effectively we must develop new ways of understanding how diseases work in the human body.

Identifying the biological pathways that contribute to how a disease develops may help us discover new drug targets.

A biological pathway is a series of reactions and interactions that happen in our cells, which result in the cell producing something or changing in some way. A drug target is a molecule in the body that a drug binds to when treating a disease.

We must also:

• Investigate how the same disease affects people differently
• Develop new ways of identifying which tissues are relevant to the drug development process

Project aim

Our aim for this project is to use data from genome-wide association studies, human tissues and prospective cohort studies to develop new ways of supporting and informing how drugs are developed.

Genome-wide association studies are studies that compare the genomes of many people to identify genetic differences associated with a disease or trait. Our genome is the complete set of genetic information in our body.

A prospective cohort study is a study that tracks a group of people over time to determine how certain factors affect the development of a specific outcome (such as a disease).

We will collaborate with our industry partner GlaxoSmithKline to identify the functional changes that happen when a person develops a disease and explore the disease process itself.

This PhD project is being undertaken by Phoebe Dickson, as lead researcher, with Professor Tom Gaunt, Professor George Davey-Smith and Tom Richardson (GlaxoSmithKline) providing supervision.