Scientists Explore Human Gene Pool With Help From Microsoft Research

Projects show potential of computer science to profoundly impact prediction
and treatment of genetic diseases.

REDMOND, Wash., April 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Breakthrough research
with the ability to predict and prevent adverse drug responses within
prescription medicine, and provide greater insight into the cause of
neurodegenerative illnesses such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's
disease, are just two of six research projects Microsoft Research today
announced it will support through its Computational Challenges of Genome Wide
Association Studies (GWAS) program.
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The supported projects were selected from 40 proposals submitted from 39
academic institutions worldwide. Microsoft Research's goal with funding
computational challenges associated with GWAS research is to aid researchers
in the correlation of genetic patterns with patients' responses to drugs,
diseases, aging or the expression of genetic disorders. The ultimate goal is
to enable lifesaving research through the use of technology.
"The Microsoft Research GWAS program provides crucial funding at the
interface between information management and quality healthcare," said Michael
Kane, an assistant professor of Computer Technology at Purdue University and
one of the researchers selected to receive support under the GWAS program.
"Patient-specific genotyping to assure prescription drug safety and drug
effectiveness is a major step toward the emergence and adoption of
personalized medicine, and this support is key to facilitating that vision.
Microsoft Corp. has recognized the important role information technology will
play in the future of healthcare. Ultimately, this is about technology that
helps to save lives."
As part of the program, more than $850,000 was shared among six research
institutions.
"When it comes to performing genetic analysis, researchers are often
hampered by the data itself, whether it's inconsistencies in format, the
inability to visualize it, or sheer volume," said Kristin Tolle, program
manager for biomedical computing on the External Research & Programs (ER&P)
team at Microsoft Research. "Through this program, Microsoft Research is
encouraging the development of computer-science solutions to improve data
access, standardization, visualization and tools to help scientists study the
human genome.
"Of all the research areas Microsoft collaborates with, none may have as
much real impact on global economies and the lives of ordinary people as
healthcare," Tolle said.
Enabling this research is part of ER&P's broader efforts to move research
in new directions across nearly every field of computer science, engineering
and general science. Through this and other regional and global programs,
Microsoft Research is partnering with researchers and scientists to address
some of the toughest, most urgent scientific and societal challenges -- such
as those in healthcare -- through enabling technologies that can provide real
solutions.
Other examples of Microsoft's support of healthcare-related research
include the program Cell Phones as a Platform for Healthcare, which sought
novel healthcare solutions that are accessible, affordable and relevant for
smart mobile phones; and the Intelligent Systems for Assisted Cognition
Awards, which provided funding for technologies to assist people living with
disorders such as autism and Alzheimer's disease. In the past six months
alone, Microsoft External Research & Programs has awarded more than
$2.5 million to academic researchers and scientists in support of healthcare
research.
Details of the six winners and a description of their projects are as
follows:
* Purdue University, Michael Kane and John Springer: "PGRx: An
Interactive Software System for Integrating Clinical Genotyping With
Prescription Drug Safety Assurance." According to a survey published
in the Journal of American Pharmacists Association in 2001,
drug-related mortality and morbidity was estimated at approximately
10 percent of all healthcare costs in the U.S. It is estimated that
adverse drug reactions are the cause of more than 200,000 deaths
each year. Kane and Springer will work to develop a software and
data management system to predict and prevent adverse drug
responses, and provide in-depth training for physicians and
pharmacists to better understand the link between genes, drug
metabolism and the risk of adverse drug responses within
prescription medicine.
* Translational Genomics Research Institute, John Pearson: "A
Universal Data Format for Genotype Microarrays." Combining data
generated in genome research is problematic due to the variety of
software platforms in use today. Pearson will work to create a
universal data format that would accommodate multiple vendor
platforms into a single file and software library. The software
library would allow for open use by the research community and
commercial proprietary use by platform vendors.
* National Institutes of Health; Johns Hopkins Hospital, Bryan
Traynor: "Genome Wide Association Study of Amyotrophic Lateral
Sclerosis in Finland." Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a
rapidly progressive, fatal disorder. The overall purpose of this
project is to discover the genes that are relevant to development of
ALS by studying 489 Finnish ALS cases. A more comprehensive
understanding of ALS biology also may provide insight into the
pathogenesis of other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's
disease and Alzheimer's disease.
* Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego;
Division of Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley;
Trey Ideker and Richard Karp: "Pathway-Based Association: A New
Paradigm for Genome Wide Association Studies." Ideker and Karp
propose to help explain the associations captured by GWAS in terms
of known gene and protein interactions by developing computational
tools that help explain linkages between signaling, regulatory and
metabolic pathways to the genes that are associated with a disorder.
If successful, this research could have a positive impact on a broad
range of genomic studies.
* Columbia University, George Hripcsak: "Phenotypic Pipeline for
Genome-wide Association Studies." Large-scale studies involving many
subjects, or even smaller studies in which subjects are selected
from a larger population, will require innovative means to extract a
reliable, useful phenotype from electronic health records data.
Hripcsak proposes to develop advanced informatics methods to convert
raw health records data into usable research information.
* University of the Republic of Uruguay; Pasteur Institute at
Montevideo, Raul Ruggia and Hugo Naya: "Data Quality Management for
Model Improvement in GWAS." This project addresses the problems of
building a data-quality management environment for the biological
area, which would enable the user to define and evaluate
biological-oriented data-quality properties over specific data
sources. The biological-oriented properties would be defined in
terms of the basic ones, and the environment would use the existing
techniques that manage basic quality properties. The main expected
outcomes will consist of biological-oriented data-quality properties
and a prototyped environment to manage and evaluate these quality
properties on biological databases.

About Microsoft Research
Founded in 1991, Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic
and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Its goals
are to enhance the user experience on computing devices, reduce the cost of
writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing technologies.
Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and collaborate with
leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of
the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition, user-interface
research, natural language processing, programming tools and methodologies,
operating systems and networking, and the mathematical sciences. Microsoft
Research currently employs more than 800 people in six labs located in
Redmond, Wash.; Cambridge, Mass.; Silicon Valley, Calif.; Cambridge, England;
Beijing, China; and Bangalore, India. Microsoft Research collaborates openly
with colleges and universities worldwide to enhance the teaching and learning
experience, inspire technological innovation, and broadly advance the field of
computer science. More information can be found at
http://www.research.microsoft.com.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software,
services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full
potential.
SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

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