Connectivity Map

New genomic tool makes connections between drugs and human disease.

While the ultimate goal of biomedicine is to connect each human disease with drugs that can effectively treat or cure it, the paths toward this goal are often circuitous. The earliest steps, in particular, can be hindered by a lack of basic knowledge about how drugs and diseases work — for example, the biology that underlies a particular disease or the molecules that are targeted by a drug’s action. What is needed to accelerate this “match-making” process is a relatively quick and systematic method for comparing different drugs and diseases based on their biological effects.

Toward this end, a research team led by Broad Institute scientists has developed a new kind of tool that relies on genes to connect diseases with potential drugs to treat them and to predict how new drugs function in cells. Called the "Connectivity Map," the new tool and its first uses are described in the September 29 issue of Science and in separate publications in the September 28 immediate early edition of Cancer Cell. The three papers demonstrate the map’s ability to accurately predict the molecular actions of novel therapeutic compounds and to suggest ways that existing drugs can be newly applied to treat diseases such as cancer.

Sources:
Connectivity Map : http://www.broad.mit.edu/cmap/

The Connectivity Map: Using Gene-Expression Signatures to Connect Small Molecules, Genes, and Disease. Justin Lamb et al. Science 29 September 2006: Vol. 313. no. 5795, pp. 1929 - 1935