Expected to contribution on research on viral infectious diseases - A paper on the latest information of KEGG has been published

On October 27, 2022, a paper summarizing the latest information on "KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes)" was published in Nucleic Acid Research. This paper reports the information of KEGG which is reported every two years in the Database Issue of Nucleic Acids Research. The NETWORK database included in "KEGG MEDICUS" and newly added virus data are also mentioned.
The addition of viral information makes it possible to analyze the interaction between humans and viruses as a molecular network. This is expected to make a significant contribution to research on infectious diseases, especially viral infections, which have become a major social problem following the spread of COVID-19, and to the development of treatment methods for such infectious diseases.

KEGG is a database which integrates genomes, diseases, and medicines into molecular networks, carefully curated from literatures by experts, and is used by many people all over the world. KEGG MEDICUS is one of the databases in KEGG, and integrates genomes, diseases, and medicines into molecular networks. It is widely used not only by researchers and pharmaceutical companies but also by the general public in society as a basic database for the advanced use of information of human genomes with pathogen genomes including and viruses. Many diseases are associated with networks, and knowledge of viral genomes, which contain many genes and proteins whose functions are still unknown, has been extensively systematized.

KEGG MEDICUS is developed and operated by Professor Minoru Kanehisa of Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, in a research and development project "Integrated database linking human and pathogen genomes to diseases and drugs" of JST-NBDC Database Integration Coordination Program (DICP).

For details, please see original paper.