Location:
Faculty Hall
Indian Institute of Science
and Infosys Science Foundation
Lecture by Infosys Prize Laureate
Computational Insights into the Role of MicroRNAs in Cancer
Prof. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay
Director
Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata
Date: Monday, December 3, 2018
Time: 4 to 5 PM
Venue: Faculty Hall, IISc
Abstract
MicroRNAs are small RNA molecules that post-transcriptionally regulate the expression of their target genes either through mRNA degradation or translation repression. Some important computational studies of microRNAs include predicting the regulatory mechanism of microRNAs themselves, predicting their targets, and studying them at a systems level in conjunction with other molecules. In this talk I will highlight some of the research results from our group that touch upon each of these tasks. I will first briefly explain our work on prediction of transcription start site of microRNAs, enabling the identification of transcription factors that regulate these small molecules. I will thereafter expand upon our work in target prediction, where the major contribution is the development of TargetMiner based on a systematic identification of tissue specific negative examples. The predicted results are combined with validated information obtained from a variety of sources to build a comprehensive transcription factor- microRNA-gene regulatory network. Two such speicifc networks are identified in breast and colorectal cancer, by identifying the differentially expressed biomolecules in these diseases. A graph theoretic analysis of these networks enables the identification of interesting network properties as also a small subset of biomolecules, primarily microRNAs, that may be crucial in the progression of the disease.
Biosketch
Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay joined the Machine Intelligence Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute as a faculty member, after completing her PhD from the same Institute in 1999. She is currently the Director of the Institute. Her areas of research interest include computational biology and bioinformatics, soft and evolutionary computation, pattern recognition, and data mining. In these areas she has published more than 300 research articles in various journals, conferences, and edited volumes. She has published six authored and edited books from publishers like Springer, World Scientific and Wiley. Sanghamitra has worked in various Universities and Institutes world-wide including in USA, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, China, Slovenia and Mexico, and delivered invited lectures in many more countries. She has received several awards and fellowships including the Bhatnagar Prize, Infosys Prize, TWAS Prize, DBT National Women Bioscientist Award (Young), INAE Silver Jubilee Prize, Young scientist/engineer medals of INSA, INAE and Science Congress, JC Bose Fellowship, Swarnajayanti Fellowship and Humboldt Fellowship. She is a Fellow of INSA, INAE, NASI and IEEE. She is currently a member of the Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council of the Prime Minister of India.
Prof. Anurag Kumar, Director, IISC, will preside
Coffee/Tea at 5 PM
All are Welcome
