Target and biomarker exploration portal for drug discovery

The discovery of novel drug targets and precision biomarkers remains a major challenge in drug development, with traditional differential expression analysis often overlooking key regulatory proteins. Here, we present a novel, web-based bioinformatics tool, the Target and Biomarker Exploration Portal (TBEP), designed to accelerate the drug discovery process by integrating large-scale biomedical data with network analysis techniques.

TBEP harnesses machine-learning approaches to mine and combine multimodal datasets, including human genetics, functional genomics, and protein-protein interaction networks, to decode causal disease mechanisms and uncover novel therapeutic targets and precision biomarkers for specific phenotypes. A unique feature of the tool is its ability to process large-scale data in real-time, facilitated by an efficient cloud-based architecture. Additionally, the tool incorporates an integrated large language model (LLM), which assists researchers in exploring and interpreting complex biological relationships within the generated networks and multi-omics data using natural language (English). By offering an intuitive, interactive interface, the LLM enhances the exploration of biological insights, making it easier for scientists to derive actionable conclusions. This powerful integration of network analysis, multi-omics data, and LLM provides a robust framework for accelerating the identification of novel drug targets.

The tool is publicly available at https://tbep.missouri.edu. The source code, documentation and installation instructions are available at GitHub repository: https://github.com/mizzoudbl/tbep.