Innovative Drug Discovery and Research Based on Functions of Genes

To meet the national needs for new drug discovery and development, this project will focus on functional genomics of the major human disease such as cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, diabetes and virus infectious diseases, build up a disease-associated gene regulation network-based drug research model, establish and utilize high throughput, high content screening techniques and other new technologies, overcome key challenges, such as drug liabilities of lead compounds, efficiency of drug screening and specificity of drug targets, and thus enhance nation’s capabilities of new drug research. At the same time, a high quality research team will be built up through the joint effort among scientists from different research fields such as functional genomics, systems biology, computational science, mathematics, physics and pharmaceutical science. The goal of the project is to establish technology platforms necessary for innovative drug research with “genomic ear” characteristics, build up the “from gene to drug” new research system and obtain several important achievements in the studies of functional genomics-based drug research.