New project to develop “The Guide to Immunopharmacology”

We are very pleased to announce a new initiative (from 1st Nov 2015) to establish “The Guide to Immunopharmacology: Integration of targets, diseases and therapies into an expert-driven database”.

This project will be supported by a 3-year grant awarded to Professor Jamie Davies at the University of Edinburgh by the Wellcome Trust (WT).

Brief synopsis of the project
Immune/inflammatory/ infection responses and disorders have become an increasing focus of pharmacological
R&D. We will enrich GtoPdb with kinome resources linking to diseases to assist selection of new targets, tool compounds and drugs. Suggested priorities are established (JAK, PI3K, IKK) and less validated (RIPKs, IRAKs, MAP3Ks) target kinases in innate immunity.

This will later extend  to adaptive immunity and kinases in selected pathogens. New data will be linked according to the existing GtoPdb expert-curation model but with a strong focus on translational aspects (e.g. clinical benefit, biomarkers and biological endpoints). In addition an immunology-orientated  portal will be developed.

Co-applicants include kinase, immunity/inflammation and parasite biology experts: Dr Michael Spedding, Professor Francesca Levi-Schaffer, Professor Clare Bryant, Professor Christian Doerig, Professor Stephen Anderton, Dr Steve Alexander, Dr Doriano Fabbro and Dr Anthony Davenport. Data selection will be guided by new IUPHAR expert subcommittees set up for this task.

We owe thanks to many folk for the success of this proposal, including for their inputs to the preparation phase and letters of support (to whom we have already communicated our appreciation).

Further details will be surfaced in due course but we are also pleased that the British Pharmacological Society will continue to support the core Guide to PHARMACOLOGY resource during and after this project.

While technical decisions remain on exactly what interfaces and data structures are instantiated, we envisage both resources will be dovetailed into an expanded central database with different front-ends for users.

Any parties with Immunopharmacology interests we have not yet engaged with are welcome to make informal contact as we go forward.