- Course overview
- Search within this course
- What is Open Targets?
- What is the Open Targets Platform?
- Deep dive into common disease genetics data (GWAS and QTL studies)
- Getting data from the Open Targets Platform
- Other informatics tools
- Summary
- Your feedback
- Get help and support on Open Targets’ informatics tools
- References
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What is Open Targets?
Open Targets is an innovative, large-scale, multi-year, public-private partnership. It was launched in 2014 as the Centre for Therapeutic Target Validation by the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and GSK.
You can find more information about Open Targets’ current and previous partners on the website.
Watch this short video with Helena Cornu, Communications Lead at Open Targets, that was recorded in April 2025 to hear more about what the Open Targets consortium is and why it is needed.
The consortium leverages human genetics and genomics data to systematically identify and prioritise potential therapeutic drug targets.
The research programme generates and analyses data to connect targets to diseases, assess the strength of this evidence, and help identify and prioritise targets for drug discovery. This includes evidence that causally links targets and diseases, as well as foundational data that helps us understand biological processes and disease progression more deeply.
Figure 1 Overview of the Open Targets workflow. Use the purple ‘i’s to learn more.