S.Mishra, Information Guided Drug Discovery-A Systems Biology Approach

Information Guided Drug Discovery - A Systems Biology Approach

S.K. Mishra

During the last few years, many novel technologies to probe complex biological systems at near molecular resolution have emerged. Ultra high throughput DNA sequencing, transcript profiling as whole genome biosensors, and protein profiling strategies based on mass spectrometry, etc. are producing enormous volumes of data. These large volumes of data, coupled with the availability of the Genome sequences of many organisms, are now enabling scientists to examine biological systems at a very high resolution. Often these large volumes of data far exceeds the capacities of scientists to explore and infer interesting biological hypotheses.

It has become imperative that information systems be designed and developed to be able to manage, analyze, synthesize, distribute and generate coherent knowledge. This presentation will review the Systems Biology approach to integrate and mine these databases such that the scientists would be able to generate hypotheses easily thereby accelerating the drug discovery and development process.

Bio: Dr. Santosh K. Mishra received his doctorate degree in Biophysics from the State University of New York at Albany in 1986 working in the area of electronic structures of proteins. He then joined the theoretical biology group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow, working in the areas of DNA and protein structures. During his tenure at Los Alamos, he was instrumental in the design, development and implementation of the GenBank nucleotide sequence database, a resource that is widely used by molecular biologist. In 1989, he joined the Washington University Genome Center on the first human gene mapping efforts and was successful in producing the first “comprehensive” genetic map of the human genome. In addition, using his knowledge and expertise in statistical genetics, he made significant contributions in disease gene(s) “hunting”. In 1994 he became a founding member of the bioinformatics division at SmithKline Beecham pharmaceuticals where he was primarily responsible for target identification using expressed sequence tags data.
 
Dr. Mishra joined Lilly in 1997 as a research scientist to lead the establishment of a multidisciplinary bioinformatics effort in collaboration with discovery information technology group. This effort has resulted in the development and implementation of state-of-the-art information management tools, computational methods, and genomic capabilities for LRL scientists. These efforts have broadly influenced new gene discovery, target validation, and the bio-product portfolio and most importantly a solid bioinformatics team. As Managing Director of the Lilly Systems Biology (Singapore), he initiated and played a key leadership role in the formation and development of the Lilly Systems Biology efforts in Singapore.  He set up the Centre in Singapore and managed a multidisciplinary team of scientists and staff in the integration of data and information from multiple sources.

Currently he is the Executive Director for Bioinformatics Institute of Singapore. His research focus is in the areas of identifying protein-functions, Systems Biology, Inflammation, Immunity and Genomics.

November 14, 2005, 14:40, FASS G052