GeneGo, Inc., the leading systems biology company, today announced that it has been awarded a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to develop an integrated systems biology platform for research into the causes and treatment of tobacco dependence, nicotine addiction, smoking cessation and tobacco/nicotine withdrawal. The SBIR grant will be used to develop a database and systems biology tool-set specifically designed for the study of the pathways involved in nicotine addiction and withdrawal, mutations and sequence heterogeneity in human genes and their controlling regions that affect these responses, and the evaluation of new targets, therapeutic strategies, and biomarkers for treatment of nicotine addiction.
"One in five adults in the US smokes according to the CDC, and it is estimated that smoking kills 1,000 Americans per day," Said Richard Brennan, Director of Toxicology at GeneGo and PI on the grant. "A holistic understanding of the complex biological pathways involved in the pharmacological and addictive effects of nicotine is needed to better understand and treat the causes of addiction and symptoms of withdrawal to help those who want to quit be successful. This project will gather existing knowledge and data to reconstruct these pathways and make them accessible to researchers and clinicians working in a variety of areas related to this persistent problem via MetaCore."
"We are delighted to receive this grant," said Julie Bryant, GeneGo's VP of Business development. "The NIDA has recognized the strength of GeneGo's scientific expertise and our capabilities in providing new and critical systems biology tools for disease research. Similar previous projects in Cystic Fibrosis and other diseases are already helping to deliver new drugs and treatment strategies to clinicians, and we hope that this project will do the same to help understand nicotine addiction."
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