Request for Funding

Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2004

Mentor: Harold "Skip" Garner
Department: McDermott Center/CBI - Biochemistry & Internal Med.
Room number: NA2.508A
Mail Code: 8591
Phone number: 81661
E-mail: garner@swmed.edu
Project title: High Throughput Drug Discovery via Repurposing

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): N/A

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): APN 0690_03_19_1, APN 0690_03_19_2

Project Type (animal-based research

Brief Description of Project:

We have developed a text data mining code, IRIDESCENT, that has the sum of all interactions among all biomedical objects (drugs, diseases, chemicals, genes, etc.) in all of Medline. We can query that network to discover hidden hypotheses. Focusing on drugs, we have demonstrated we can predict new uses for existing compounds, thus greatly reducing the time and money (currently it is 15 yrs, $880M for a new drug) required to 'discover' a new efficacy. We have been focusing on cardiac diseases that are underserved by existing therapeutics, and test these suggestions directly in appropriate mouse models for disease.

We propose a project that could involve one or more summer students to work with the group to test some new candidate drugs on some new disease indications. The work would involve experiment design, animal handling, data taking and analysis.

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:

We have had a number of medical students in the lab each summer. They have successfully completed work, often ending in a publication.

Hyperspectral Imaging: A Novel Approach for Microscopic Analysis, R.A. Schultz, T. Nielsen, J. Zavaleta, R. Ruch, R. Wyatt, H.R. Garner., Cytometry 43: 239-247 (2001)

K. M. O'Brien, J. Wren, V. K. Dave, D. Bai, R. D. Anderson, S. Rayner, G. A. Evans, A. E. Dabiri, and H. R. Garner, "ASTRAL, a Hyperspectral Imaging DNA Sequencer," Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 69, No. 5, May, 1998.

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