Network Analyses and Visualizations for Biomedicine

KOC UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
ENGINEERING SEMINAR SERIES
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Speaker: Zeynep H. Gümüş, PhD

http://physiology.med.cornell.edu/faculty/gumus/lab/

Title: Network Analyses and Visualizations for Biomedicine

Date: 2 March 2012

Time: 11:00 A.M.

Cookie & Tea: Engineering Coffee Lounge, 10:45 A.M.

Place: ENG 208

Host: Yaman Arkun

Abstract:

In order to computationally simulate and predict the behavior of a biological network using engineering principles, a complete and accurate blueprint of the system is necessary. However, often this kind of comprehensive information is not known and not possible to obtain. I will present an integrated experimental and computational approach we have designed to identify the key cellular components of a network, specifically to discover those that either contribute to or drive therapeutic synergy of drug combinations in cancer treatment. The approach includes (i) quantification of drug synergy in high throughput transcriptome experiments, (ii) data-driven Reverse Engineering and Forward Simulation technology to develop an in silico model predictive of drug synergy, and (iii) utilization of databases of interaction and functional information in hypothesis generation that are validated experimentally in a final step (iv). I will illustrate this approach with an application to the analysis of transcriptome changes in cells exposed to the synergistic anticancer drug combination of farnesyl transferase inhibitors (FTIs) combined with taxanes in ovarian cancer treatment.

Finally, I will present a new technology my group is developing in immersive 3D visualization of networks, from the level of the brain to the bio-molecules to aid in disease therapy and drug discovery.