The Data Science working group of Uni Marburg is developing a new biomedical database: CORDITE. There, research data on SARS-CoV-2 is centrally collected and sorted, paving the way for future research and drug production.
While many global projects are underway to develop effective drugs against Covid-19, it’s extremely difficult to keep track of all of them. For this reason, the biomedical database CORDITE (CORona Drug InTErations database) is now bundling data from existing studies to ease access to SARS-CoV-2 research.
CORDITE automatically collects information on computerized, in-vitro or case studies of potential drugs to combat SARS-CoV-2 from various specialized databases. CORDITE also lists registered clinical trials at the U.S. National Institutes for Health (NIH). Through this data collection, scientists can now access data from potential target structures and docking sites on cells, so-called targets, quicker. “CORDITE brings together data from over 230 publications and more than 240 clinical trials worldwide. This is data on almost 600 drug interactions for 20 targets and for more than 450 drugs, making it currently the largest curated database of potential drugs for SARS-CoV-2,” explains Professor and Dr. Dominik Heider, head of the Data Science group at the Philipps University of Marburg. Users can access all relevant data, sort it according to various criteria and download it. “This enables researchers to carry out meta-analyses, design new clinical studies or even conduct a curated literature search,” Heider continues. “Integration into other software or apps is also possible.” Information from the articles and preprints is manually curated by moderators of his research group. The Data Science staff mainly work on computer solutions to solve biomedical problems, such as algorithms for machine learning to predict the drug resistance of pathogens or to model diseases. With CORDITE’s work underway, another Central Hessen research group is supporting the worldwide development of drugs against SAR-CoV-2.
