KIF1A.ORG’s 21st Research Roundtable meeting, “Beginning to map the interactome for KAND”, was presented by Ethan Beswick and Dr. Alok Tayi of Vibe Bio. Learn about how Vibe Bio is developing data tools to empower KAND research.
Attendance
33 RESEARCHERS, CLINICIANS, & BIOTECH REPS
21 RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS & INDUSTRY PARTNERS/ORGS
3 KIF1A.ORG REPS
Who Is Vibe Bio?
Vibe Bio is a community of rare disease patients, scientists, and partners committed to empowering patient advocacy groups with research tools and infrastructure. Their team has been working with KIF1A.ORG to create tools that will help our Research Network more readily research KIF1A.
This Research Roundtable we were joined by Ethan Beswick, a food scientist and chemist, and Dr. Alok Tayi, the founder of Vibe Bio and father to a child with a rare disease.
Summary
If you’re a researcher or clinician trying to learn about KIF1A, there’s a lot you want to know: What’s the role of KIF1A in a cell? What other proteins does KIF1A work with to do its job? How does a specific mutation impact KIF1A function? How does that mutation relate to symptoms in humans? And how similar or different is it from other KIF1A mutations?
This requires tools that can collect scientific findings and display them in intuitive ways, which is why Vibe Bio and KIF1A.ORG are working to collect KIF1A information from scientific databases, and align them in a KIF1A interactome – a map of KIF1A interactions.
This is like a Wikipedia of KIF1A knowledge: Scientists can use the tool to look for specific info, but along the way they’re exposed to related subjects that can help inform their projects, expose gaps in knowledge, and spark new research ideas. Our goal is to make research more efficient and relevant to KAND.
This tool is still under development, and Vibe Bio and KIF1A.ORG are requesting input from our Research Network so this tool is as useful as possible for the people who use it!