Welcome to the "GeneLab Chats" series. In this brief interview style format, GeneLab speaks with authors of GeneLab-enabled publications to better understand the scope of their publication as well as how the GeneLab data system helped enabled their research. Read more information below about the publication highlighted in this series from Dr. Vidya Manian, from the University of Puerto Rico.
Providing appropriate mitigation strategies to counter the negative physiological effects that occur due to spaceflight is of critical importance to support deep space travel. One of those negative physiological effects that arise from the space environment is muscle atrophy. Medications can be used as a countermeasure for treating muscle atrophy but creating new drugs or even finding re-purposed drugs is costly and time consuming. In this publication by Dr Vidya Manian, “An Integrative Network Science and Artificial Intelligence Drug Repurposing Approach for Muscle Atrophy in Spaceflight Microgravity,” six transcriptomic datasets from GeneLab (OSD-4, OSD-244, OSD-245, OSD-246, OSD-288, and OSD-289) were used to mine the key genes that cause muscle atrophy, which was funded by a NASA EPSCoR call for the reuse of GeneLab data. This publication further discussed an artificial intelligence method to identify drug candidates as possible treatments for muscle atrophy in a rapid and cost-effective manner. Dr. Manian is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering & Bioengineering at the University of Puerto Rico and is a contributing member of the GeneLab Analysis Working Group. This interview with GeneLab highlights how the GeneLab Data Systems and tools enabled Dr. Manian’s publication.
