Patent ID: 8793073

Claim:
A computer system for identifying one or more drug discovery targets, the system comprising: a knowledge representation system comprising an ontology, and a knowledge base of scientific findings; wherein: (a) the knowledge base comprises genomics information, and findings derived from natural language, wherein the genomics information comprises information relating to genes, their DNA sequences, their mRNA, proteins expressed from said genes and the biological effects of the expressed proteins; (b) the ontology is organized so that: (i) each gene, mRNA, protein expressed from said gene, and biological effect is given an identifier which is related to synonyms for the identifier; (ii) each gene, mRNA, protein expressed from said gene, and biological effect is categorized by class; and (iii) the relationship of each gene, mRNA, protein expressed from said gene and disease state is defined by slots and facets; and (c) the computer system is configured to: (i) receive a profile definition criterion from a user identifying a subset of biological objects and processes that act on biological systems in a disease-related pathway; (ii) generate a profile using the knowledge base, wherein the profile comprises a subset of genomics information contained in the knowledge base comprising information relating to genes, their DNA sequences, their mRNA, proteins expressed from said genes and the biological effects of the expressed proteins; (iii) perform computational analysis of biological relationships among the subset of genomics information in the profile based upon the profile definition criterion; and (iv) identify additional biological objects and processes that act on those objects associated with the disease-related pathway using the analysis of biological relationship; whereby each identified object or process is a drug discovery target, wherein the computer system is a stand alone computer, a multicomponent computer, or a networked computer, and wherein the computer system farther comprises hardware for electronically searching the knowledge base.