The Open Targets Platform is a comprehensive research tool that supports systematic identification and prioritisation of potential therapeutic drug targets.‌ By integrating publicly available datasets along with data generated by the Open Targets consortium, the Platform builds and scores target-disease associations.

Earlier this year, the Platform was expanded through the inclusion of variant, study, and credible set information. The Platform now includes comprehensive variant annotation and the results of state-of-the-art large scale statistical analysis, including fine-mapping, colocalisation, and locus-to-gene assignment across all complex and molecular traits. Drawing from the GWAS Catalog, the eQTL Catalogue, FinnGen, the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project and more, users can browse over 2.6 million credible sets to build more robust therapeutic hypotheses.

This webinar will provide an introduction to the capabilities and use cases for the Open Targets Platform, and demonstrate the impact of the newly introduced data. These allow you to dig deeper into the GWAS evidence for a target-disease association, explore our analyses of GWAS and molecular QTL studies, and relevant annotation data.

Who is this course for?

This webinar is suitable for lab-based and computational research scientists, graduate students, and post-doctoral research fellows working in early stage drug discovery.

Outcomes

By the end of the webinar you will be able to:

• Define the expanded Open Targets Platform data model and identify use cases for the Platform
• Identify the types of target-disease association and annotation data integrated into the Open Targets Platform
• Recognise how variant, study, and credible set information can be used to refine therapeutic hypotheses

DOI: 10.6019/TOL.OpenTargets-w.2025.00001.1

This webinar took place on 23 April 2025. Please click the 'Watch video' button to view the recording.