S4.08 Making better medicines: unlocking the promise of genomics for drug discovery
Hello, and welcome to Genetics Unzipped - the Genetics Society podcast, with me, Dr Kat Arney. In this episode, sponsored by AstraZeneca, we’re finding out how researchers are unlocking the information hidden within the human genome using new technologies like CRISPR gene editing and artificial intelligence with the aim of developing better medicines and getting them faster to the patients who need them.
Drug discovery and development is the process by which researchers endeavour to turn bright scientific ideas into life-changing treatments for patients. But this isn’t easy. It can take up to 10 years for a new drug to get to a point where doctors can prescribe it, all the way from the first idea in the lab through to clinical trials testing safety and effectiveness, costing many hundreds of millions of dollars along the way.
Increasingly, the journey starts with identifying a target - finding a protein molecule inside the body like an enzyme or receptor that plays a role in disease, then finding a drug that interacts with it and stops whatever is going wrong. Sounds simple, right? Alas, it’s not.
80% or more promising new therapeutics fails somewhere along the way, either because of unacceptable side effects or because - to put it simply - they just don’t work. And, it turns out, that’s usually because the underlying scientific idea, and therefore the target, is wrong.
So, in order to make better drugs and get them to patients faster, we need to find better targets that are relevant to the underlying biology of disease, not just treating symptoms. Then we need to make sure these proteins are actually doing what we think they’re doing, and finally start looking for drugs that work on them.
Steve Rees: Homing in on the right targets
Steve Rees leads the Discovery Biology group at AstraZeneca, where he and his colleagues are focusing on this very first step of the drug discovery journey: coming up with the new ideas and targets that could lead to the new medicines of tomorrow. Click here to hear more from Steve Rees about what he and his team are up to.
David Goldstein: Mining the genome for medical insights
Increasingly, as Steve explained, the first inklings of an interesting new target are coming from genomics - trawling through billions of ‘letters’ of DNA from hundreds or even thousands of people in search of genetic variations that might be linked to disease and could point towards an exciting new target for drug development - and, importantly, identifying the right patients who might benefit from them. Click here to learn more about how David Goldstein, Professor of Genetics at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York and chief advisor for AstraZeneca’s Centre for Genomics Research, is gaining insights from the complex information in the human genome.
Dave Michalovich: Using AI to seek out new drug targets
The kind of datasets that David was talking about are growing ever larger and more complex, taking them far beyond the capability of a human brain, or even a simple computer, to analyse. So it’s lucky that alongside the exponential rise in genomics and all the other ‘omics’ we’ve seen a similar expansion in computing capacity, with the development of sophisticated machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence, or AI as it’s more usually known. Click here to find out how Dave Michalovich, Vice President of Precision Medicine at Benevolent AI, has teamed up with AstraZeneca to smoosh all this data together.
That’s all for now. Thanks to my guests, Steve Rees, David Goldstein and Dave Michalovich, and thanks very much to AstraZeneca for sponsoring this episode.
You can find out more about the challenges of discovering better targets in drug development in the latest post on AstraZeneca’s blog, Hitting the Bullseye.
We’ll be back next time exploring the genetics of giants - discovering how some animals have evolved to be so big, learning about the hunt for the genes behind the giants of Ireland, and finding out why island life makes some species grow and others shrink, including the tiny elephants that roamed the islands of the Mediterranean not that long ago (in evolutionary terms).
For more information about this podcast including show notes, transcripts, links, references, music credits and everything else head over to geneticsunzipped.com You can find us on Twitter @geneticsunzip and please do take a moment to rate and review us on Apple podcasts - it really makes a difference and helps more people discover the show.
Genetics Unzipped is written and presented by me, Kat Arney. It is produced by First Create the Media for The Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies in the world dedicated to supporting and promoting the research, teaching and application of genetics. You can find out more and apply to join at genetics.org.uk. Our theme music was composed by Dan Pollard, and the logo was designed by James Mayall, and audio production was by Hannah Varrall. Thanks for listening, and until next time, goodbye.
Sound effects licensed from Epidemic Sound
Image Credits:
Steve Rees, Photo courtesy of Steve Rees
David Goldstein, Photo courtesy of David Goldstein
Dave Michalovich, Photo courtesy of Dave Michalovich
