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 the Open Targets Genetics portal which identifies targets based on GWAS and functional genomics. We complement data integration with large scale systematic experimental approaches to support target identification, prioritisation and validation. Check out our latest papers describing our experimental target identification approaches in oncology, neurodegeneration, and immunity and inflammation.


News

Open Targets project creates a human interactome to prioritise drug discovery

23 February 2023

Scientists at Open Targets, EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), and GSK are revealing the shared basis of diseases using a map of interacting human proteins. By helping to understand how biological processes affect human traits and diseases, this work will prioritise new targets for drug discovery and identify drug repurposing opportunities.

Proteins are molecules that do most of the work in our cells and are made following blueprints encoded in genes. They are ess...

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Our Partners

At the heart of Open Targets is a consortium of complementary partner institutions that bring their respective expertise to collaborative projects that improve how we systematically identify and prioritise drug targets.


Our Principles

A systematic approach

Systematically identify and prioritise the best targets to safely and effectively treat rare and common diseases

Rapid publication

We are committed to rapid publication and making data, methods and results publicly available as soon as possible

Open collaboration

We believe in non-exclusive partnerships that foster the free exchange of ideas, expertise, and data


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Case study: Querying the Open Targets Platform using natural language

Helena Cornu

25 May 2023

Code breaking and the Human Genome Project

Ian Dunham

25 April 2023

A leading scientist in the sequencing of the human genome, Ian Dunham reflects on the early years of the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

How Emmanouil Metzakopian is finding gene targets to treat neurodegeneration

Helena Cornu

5 April 2023

Manos Metzakopian discusses his latest research, in which the team validated KAT2B gene knockouts as neuroprotective against ER stress.

Provenance Metadata — towards reproducible research

Manuel Bernal Llinares

22 March 2023

How the Open Targets Platform Integrates Gene Burden Analyses

Irene López Santiago

6 March 2023

Analysis and explanation of gene burden associations in the Open Targets Platform

Open Targets Platform 23.02 has been released!

Sir Target

22 February 2023

How Open Targets is using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to identify and prioritise drug targets

Helena Cornu

2 December 2022

Open Targets Platform 22.11 has been released!

Sir Target

24 November 2022

Open Targets Genetics: version 8 is out!

Sir Target

13 October 2022

Open Targets Platform 22.09 has been released

Sir Target

3 October 2022

Open Targets Platform 22.06 has been released!

Sir Target

24 June 2022

Next steps in our web applications' architecture

Carlos Cruz

21 June 2022

How Lorenzo Bomba is using rare genetic variants to understand blood metabolites

Helena Cornu

31 May 2022

Open Targets Platform 22.04 has been released!

Sir Target

28 April 2022

How we overhauled our literature processing pipeline using Named Entity Recognition

Miguel Carmona, Helena Cornu

19 April 2022

Open Targets Platform 22.02 has been released!

Sir Target

1 March 2022

Open Targets Genetics: version 7 is out!

Sir Target

25 February 2022

How Nuria Lopez-Bigas is untangling the genetics of cancer

Helena Cornu

4 February 2022

Untangling the genetics of neuroinflammation: an interview with Yixi Chen

Helena Cornu

14 December 2021

Open Targets Platform 21.11 has been released!

Sir Target

29 November 2021