Open Targets is an innovative, large-scale, multi-year, public-private partnership that uses human genetics and genomics data for systematic drug target identification and prioritisation.
Visit the Open Targets Platform which integrates public domain data to enable target identification and prioritisation, or Open Targets Genetics which identifies targets based on GWAS and functional genomics.
Visit the Open Targets Platform Visit Open Targets Genetics
Cambridge, 10 April 2019
Open Targets is pleased to announce that one of our first experimental projects has published its findings in Nature. In one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers used CRISPR-Cas9 technology to conduct whole-genome drop out screens in over 300 cancer cell lines from 30 different cancer types. The team discovered thousands of key genes essential for cancer’s survival and developed a new system to prioritise and rank 600 potential drug targets that show the most promise for development into treatments.
Read the full announcement Read the article (Behan et. al, 2019)
Generating and interpreting the data required to identify a good drug target demands a diverse set of skills, backgrounds, evidence types and technologies, which do not exist today in any single entity. Open Targets brings together expertise from seven complementary institutions to systematically identify and prioritise targets from which safe and effective medicines can be developed.
Our goals are to:
We currently focus on oncology, immunology and neurodegeneration through an R&D framework that can be applied to all aspects of human disease. We believe that evidence generated in the most human relevant systems showing which targets are causing disease will have a significant impact on the successful development of new medicines. To build a good therapeutic hypothesis we need to find not only which targets are involved but also how we might alter complex disease mechanisms, and how predictive laboratory and animal results are for humans. Learn more about our science.
Open Targets is committed to openly sharing our data with the scientific community through publications, the internationally recognised databases and the Open Targets Platform. Access our resources.
We welcome discussions with new partners who share our philosophies and scientific interests. Get to know our team and find our contact details.
For more information about Open Targets please see this introductory video.