Plano, Texas, United States
Fifteen plus years of scientific and research experience spanning multifaceted domains – Pharmaceutical industry, University, Agri biosciences, National Research laboratory, Clinical research facility, Large scale hospital, and Independent consultancy. Highly passionate, articulate, and actively contributes to -omics and related areas of research lab-based/clinical/ translational research. Possess multi-disciplinary skills that serve to bridge the ever-persistent gap between the life science business and information technology. Extensive qualification and research based experience specializing in a) translational bioinformatics domain that facilitates scaling the work to broad areas of scientific research b) the design and implementation of integrated infrastructure and systems for management, analysis and knowledge representation of high-throughput datasets c) harnessing a systems biology approach in performing comprehensive functional analysis and in interpreting the results to end users in meaningful ways for life science researchers and physicians d) liaising amongst a wide spectrum of research domain experts; in knowledge representation and in providing thought leadership Hands on and effective organizational coordination and leadership that guides cross functional team-building, project management and immersive experience that delivers highly rewarding solutions for scientific and translational research programs
Serve as an independent consultant for the Genomics Core Clients at CCF and guiding PIs from other institutes in providing bioinformatics solutions and thought leadership on effective utilization of biological and clinical datasets for specific research outcomes. In collaboration with the Reproductive Research Center at CCF, leading a team of scientists utilizing bioinformatics, computational biology, and integrative informatics-driven analytics to support the functional profiling and biomarker based target discovery of proteomics data. http://www.clevelandclinic.org/reproductiveresearchcenter/info/collab1.html
Instrumental in setting up the core to promote the basic, clinical, and translational research at LRI and CCF by enabling the scientists and physicians to take advantage of the emerging computational technologies, high throughput data and our bioinformatics expertise. Besides managing the administrative and operational aspects of the bioinformatics core facility, served as a vital link between a team of physicians, genetic counselors, bench scientists, statisticians, and IT specialists in analyzing, integrating, and interpreting -omics and clinical genetics data for pattern discovery besides designing, curating, and implementing databases. Translational Bioinformatics Initiatives- Supported GMI’s Clinical Research Operations in providing integrated data management/analysis solutions for their clinical history and laboratory research data. Initiated and enabled data driven scientific solutions at disparate departments from basic laboratory research core facilities such as Hybridoma and Proteomics Core to Clinical facilities such as the Eye Institute, Cancer institute, Pediatrics, and perioperative genomics in Anesthesiology. Served as a bioinformatics faculty for CCLCM students - prepared course materials, conducted workshops, training, and usergroups on the applications of bioinformatics for clinical and translational sciences.
Overall responsibilities in various projects as a) Bioinformatics and Computational Biology specialist or b) Liaison and Domain Expert for biologists and IT team/High Performance Computing/Semantic Web Technologies has been to enlist, collaborate, and bride relationships with various specialists in diverse domains and uncover newer cooperation possibilities with internal (Environmental Technology Directorate, Computational and Information Sciences Directorate, and Biology divisions) and external agents (OHSU, NIH and EPA). Worked in the areas of genome annotation & curation, profiling pathways and gene regulatory networks from microarray data, integration of genomic and proteomic data, bioremediation, molecular modeling & dynamic simulations of protein complexes, and in understanding the impact of particulate matter in eliciting an inflammatory response using integrated modeling and systems biology approach. Led the IT team in the design, development and implementation of a simplified version of Laboratory Information Management System, for use by the wet lab scientists under the Biomolecular Systems Initiative at PNNL.
Besides being the department’s bioinformatics analyst in doing the in-silico analysis, also acquired hands-on experience in wet lab in-vitro studies on plant projects under the guidance and supervision of Dr. Katie Dehesh. Performed extensive sequence and structure based bioinformatics predictions, molecular modeling of proteins, and in identifying and mapping rice and Arabidopsis genes to biochemical and signaling pathways. Bioinformatics analysis provided promising leads that UC Davis researchers used to capture and corroborate the results for project’s needs and publications.
Provided bioinformatics analysis support to the drug target discovery programs and to the scientific team members at Monsanto, India and St. Louis. Some of the key projects include, a) In-silico re-engineeringof key class of enzymes with desired properties using homology-based protein modeling and docking studies with appropriate ligands to analyze, identify, and confirm the basis of chain-length specificity of enzyme under study that was experimentally validated and studies published, b) Established standards, procedures for producing high quality annotation, curation, and validation of rice genome sequences produced by automated annotation pipeline at Monsanto, St. Louis c) Provided IT and domain support in design, coding, testing, and integrating tools of interest onto a proprietary scientific workbench, and ensured that team efforts fall in sync with the expectation of scientists, and d) Developed and implemented a SOP to disseminate information on “Genes In News (GINs) in the form of an alert system for rapid identification of potential genes of interest for pre-nomination to patent filing, lab analyses and field testing.