According to the Royan Institute Public Relations Office, the database was developed by systematically reviewing and manually curating 9,983 scientific publications.
The research team, led by Dr. Sharif Moradi and colleagues at the Royan Institute together with researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen, extracted and integrated experimentally validated data on 1,095 human microRNAs associated with cancer.
MicroRNAs, or miRNAs, are small non-coding regulatory RNA molecules that control gene expression and play important roles in biological processes including cell proliferation, differentiation, migration, survival and apoptosis.
Abnormal miRNA expression and function have been linked to the initiation and progression of numerous human cancers, making them an important focus of cancer research and precision oncology.
The researchers said namiRa, meaning “immortal” in Persian, provides structured information on miRNA expression profiles, functional roles, detection methods, validated target genes and regulatory networks across a broad range of human cancers.
Unlike databases that primarily provide expression profiles or miRNA-target information, namiRa integrates multiple layers of experimentally validated evidence.
These include miRNA expression patterns, detection methodologies, functional characterization from both in vitro and in vivo studies, validated target genes and interactive visualization of miRNA regulatory networks.
The integrated framework is designed to help researchers examine the roles of miRNAs in cancer initiation, progression and metastasis and conduct comparative analyses across different cancer types.
According to the investigators, namiRa could facilitate the identification of cancer biomarkers, accelerate the discovery of therapeutic targets and support future cancer research.
The database also brings together previously dispersed experimental findings into a unified reference resource to support data-driven biomedical research and the use of computational technologies in precision medicine.
The study describing namiRa has been published in the peer-reviewed international journal Computers in Biology and Medicine, published by Elsevier.
The namiRa database is freely available to the global scientific community through an open-access web platform at www.namira-db.com.