In Silico Target Portal: An integrated Oncology target discovery web portal

With increasing numbers of genomic datasets becoming publicly available, new analysis and filtering tools are needed to serve user communities. Here we describe the development of the Roche In Silico Target Portal (ISTP) for Oncology research, a system that integrates meta-analysis results of gene expression studies with gene-disease, gene-mutation as well as gene-compound (competitor information) relationships into a single entry application. This system uses a three-tier architecture that includes an Oracle relational database, a set of data processing pipelines, and a Java-based web interface. The data processing pipelines were developed in house using Accelrys´ Pipeline Pilot. Currently, the ISTP database contains data for seven major tumor types with tens of thousands of records on genes, compounds, mutations, and gene-disease relationship, accessible to Roche internal users via a simple user interface. The ISTP application highlights the potential of such a data integration system for drug discovery and development.