The goal of the collaboration is to identify biomarkers to predict patient response to asthma therapies and to discover new biology that may lead to better treatments for asthma.

The collaboration will combine the disease expertise of the BWH researchers, the computational expertise of BWH and GNS, and GNS's supercomputer-driven Reverse Engineering Forward Simulation (REFS) scientific computing platform.

BWH and GNS will be working from de-identified patient data from over 700 participants in the Childhood Asthma Management Program, a five-year clinical trial that compared inhaled corticosteroids to placebo in patients who were 5-12 years old when enrolled in the study.

The data for patients include genetics, gene expression, several clinical and environmental measures, and clinical outcomes such as hospitalizations, requirements for fast-acting asthma drugs, and reduced lung growth.

The BWH and GNS team will utilize the REFS platform to build computer models directly from the data that connect genetics to biology to clinical outcomes. These computer models will be simulated to discover the key genetic and molecular drivers of both childhood asthma disease progression and response to inhaled corticosteroids.

BWH and GNS plan to publish their findings from the collaboration and engage drug makers in utilizing the discoveries and computer models to make new therapies available to patients.

Iya Khalil, executive vice president and co-founder of GNS, said: “We are looking forward to working with Scott Weiss and his team to unravel the blueprint of childhood asthma using our novel and powerful approach. Together, we have a chance to make a real impact on asthma for children in the next few years.”

Will the collaboration enhance the firm's R&D activities?

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