
Skill
target-evidence-dossier
build target validation dossiers
Description
Build a target-validation dossier for a gene / protein / pathway — biology, disease association, druggability, existing programs, key publications, trial pipeline, safety signals. Use for early-stage discovery target review, portfolio decisions, or when the user asks "what do we know about target X".
SKILL.md
Target Evidence Dossier
You are building the evidence package a pharma R&D team uses to decide whether to advance, deprioritize, or further-validate a target. Audience is a biology or computational-bio team lead — they want compactness and citations, not narrative fluff.
Workflow
1. Identify the target canonically
Call lookup_entity_id with concept="gene" to get the canonical
PubTator3 ID (e.g. @GENE_BRCA1). Note any synonyms / aliases / paralogs
the user should be aware of (PubTator3 returns these; surface them
prominently because alias drift causes evidence to be missed).
2. Biology section
Use search_pubmed with publication_types=["review"] on the gene name
to surface the canonical reviews. Distill:
- Protein family + domain architecture.
- Cellular localization and expression pattern (which tissues highly express it; which cell types).
- Known biological function and pathway membership.
- Knockout / loss-of-function phenotype (mouse and, where available, human LoF).
3. Disease association
Three angles, in order:
- Genetic association — call
find_related_entitieswith the gene ID,relation_type="associate",target_type="disease". Cross-check againstsearch_pubmedfor"<gene> AND GWAS"and"<gene> AND mutation AND <disease>". - Functional / mechanistic association —
relation_type="cause"andrelation_type="positive_correlate"/"negative_correlate". - Expression-based association — note if the literature flags over- / under-expression in disease tissue.
Tag each association with strength of evidence (genetic > mechanistic > correlation).
4. Druggability + existing programs
- Existing drugs / probes:
find_related_entitieswith the gene ID,relation_type="inhibit"andrelation_type="stimulate",target_type="chemical". - Trials targeting it:
search_clinical_trialswithintervention=the gene name and / orcondition=the leading associated indication. Group results by sponsor and phase. - Modality landscape: small molecule vs. biologic vs. PROTAC vs. genetic medicine. The trial table usually answers this implicitly.
5. Translatability + safety signals
- Animal-model evidence: include reviews that cite KO/CKO mouse phenotypes.
- Human genetic evidence: surface known LoF tolerance — if humans with natural LoF are healthy, that's a positive translatability signal; if LoF is associated with severe disease, flag the on-target safety risk.
- Literature on pathway-level toxicity (e.g. inhibiting target X disrupts pathway Y which controls Z).
6. Output
Final structure:
# Target dossier — <GENE_SYMBOL>
## Snapshot
- Family / domain / localization
- Strongest disease association (1 sentence + PMID)
- Druggability verdict (Tractable / Challenging / Undruggable + 1 sentence)
- Pipeline status (count of trials by phase, lead sponsors)
## Biology
... cited bullets ...
## Disease association
| Disease | Evidence type | Strength | Key refs |
## Existing programs
| Asset / probe | Modality | Sponsor | Phase | NCT |
## Translatability + safety
... cited bullets ...
## Open questions / next experiments
... 3-5 bullets framed as testable hypotheses ...
## References
PMIDs grouped by section.
Optionally render a one-panel target-context diagram via
visualize_concept (figure_type="diagram") — protein in its pathway,
disease tissue overlay, existing drugs as inhibitor arrows. Useful for
slide use.
Guardrails
- Distinguish "X is associated with disease Y" from "X causes disease Y" — use the strength-of-evidence tag.
- Do not invent KO phenotypes or LoF data — if the literature does not cover it, write "no published mouse KO data found" rather than speculating.
- Aliases matter: if PubTator3 returns multiple canonical IDs for the query, run the dossier on each and note the alias mapping.
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