After six years of hard work, a global team of scientists has created “NeEDL,” a smart AI tool that can study complex genetic connections. This tool uncovers hidden genetic interactions that affect many hereditary diseases, which were hard to find before. The genetic connections NeEDL discovers are available on an online platform and can guide the creation of new treatments.
Many diseases, like Alzheimer’s, bipolar disorder, and type 2 diabetes, are caused by the interaction of several genetic variants (SNPs). These genetic relationships are often hard to notice but are key to understanding the root of these diseases and finding targeted treatments. This is where NeEDL helps: by using advanced data analysis, NeEDL finds complex SNP groups involved in these genetic interactions.
The tool produces more accurate results compared to earlier methods. NeEDL achieved this by using quantum computing techniques, which may speed up these complex calculations in the future as technology improves.
NeEDL has been tested on data from eight diseases, including Alzheimer’s, bipolar disorder, coronary heart disease, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, hypertension, inflammatory bowel disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. The results provide new genetic insights into these conditions.
Researchers can explore the genetic interactions for these diseases in the Epistasis Disease Atlas. This could lead to better risk predictions and new treatments.
The project took six years and involved top researchers from institutions such as the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in the USA, the Technical University of Munich, and the University of Hamburg.
The Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics and the Braunschweig Integrated Centre of Systems Biology (BRICS) played a key role in the project, with TU Braunschweig experts helping with data analysis.
Source: magazin.tu-braunschweig
