NLM DIR Seminar Schedule

Abstract:

Understanding biological networks and how alterations in those networks drive human disease is key to novel treatment strategies. I will give an overview of several methods and resources focused on understanding complex diseases through the lens of network biology. A major topic will be the development and application of the Pathway Commons (PC) molecular interaction resource. PC is based on community-generated formats and ontologies for the representation of biological data (i.e., the Biological Pathway Exchange format and the Systems Biology Graphical Notation). More recent PC development has broadened into areas of crowdsourcing and natural language processing in order to scale with the increase of scientific publishing. I will also cover the use of PC in the creation of drug resistance prediction algorithms and the interpretation of experimental results in the context of biological networks. Additionally, I will discuss work done in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to structure large data collections. This work helps bridge experimental model systems and patient data for the development of predictive drug response models and the identification of biomarkers and biological process signatures relevant to treatment decisions.