19/09/2014

The ESTIV Best Poster Award at Eurotox2014 goes to Chemotargets

Chemotargets, the spin-off of the Systems Pharmacology group of GRIB (IMIM-UPF), has been awarded with the European Society for Toxicology In Vitro (ESTIV) Best Poster Award at the conference Eurotox2014 held in Edinburgh (Scotland) last September.

The poster entitled "Computational prediction of off-target related risks of molecules: cardiotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, and reproductive toxicity" was done in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Sanofi. The work shows how the prediction of the pharmacological profile of a molecule, made using the software CTlink developed at Chemotargets, allows for identifying relationships between unintended protein interactions (off-target) and different modes of toxicity. In particular, examples of cardiotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, and reproductive toxicity predictions are presented for several drug candidates. This methodology represents an important step forward towards a better understanding of the mechanisms of toxicity and, therefore, to the anticipation of the potential risks associated with drug candidates.