GPlacencia.com

A European research team has developed a virtual laboratory designed to help doctors match drugs to patients and make treatments more effective. The ViroLab Virtual Laboratory uses machine learning, data mining, grid computing, modeling, and simulation technologies to convert the content of millions of scientific journal articles, databases, and patients' medical histories into knowledge that can be used for treatment. "ViroLab finds new pathways for treatment by integrating different kinds of data, from genetic information and molecular interactions within the body, measured in nanoseconds, up to sociological interactions on the epidemiological level spanning years of disease progression," says University of Amsterdam professor Peter Sloot. The system continuously crawls grid-connected databases of virological, immunological, clinical, genetic, and experimental data and extracts information from scientific journal articles. The ViroLab Virtual Laboratory also could be used to create personalized drug rankings to aid in the treatment of people suffering from diseases.

The mission of ViroLab is to develop a virtual laboratory for infectious diseases. In future years, genetic information is expected to become increasingly significant in many areas of medicine. This expectation comes from the recent and anticipated achievements in genomics, which provide an unparalleled opportunity to advance the understanding of the role of genetic factors in human health and disease, to allow more precise definition of the non-genetic factors involved, and to apply this insight rapidly to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases.