Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

Courtesy Bioclues Are you a skilled bioinformatician? Do you have experience with analysis and integration  of large data sets? Would you like to work with leading experts and constantly improve  your skills? Then you may be Intomics’ next bioinformatician. We are expanding our bioinformatics team and are seeking a skilled bioinformatician to  help the team provide innovative solutions for our clients in the pharmaceutical industry.  You will play an important role in implementing data mining strategies for projects in  areas such as target identification, biomarker identification, disease systems biology, and  translation research. Our preferred candidate has the following profile: Bioinformatics or computational biology background Experience with large-scale data mining Strong experience with programming (e.g.  Perl,  Python,  Java),  databases (e.g.  MySQL, PostgreSQL), and Unix Excellent communication skills and the abi...

Practical Course - European Molecular Biology Organization Bioinformatics & Comparative Genome Analyses 27 June - 09 July, 2011 |Institute Pasteur | Paris | France About the Practical Course In the context of large-scale genome comparisons, the main objectives of this general purpose practical course are to strengthen capacities of students in Bioinformatics and data analyses skills by introducing reviews on advanced fundamental algorithms used in Bioinformatics and their applications in genome studies.     Theoretical presentations will be followed by practical sessions, so that the same speaker will ensure links between theory and practice. Reviews on each suggested topic will include their corresponding research perspectives, aiming at helping young scientists to gain insights into ongoing research in this domain.  The course topics will include theoretical and practical aspects in: large-scale genome comparisons, evolutionary analyses, sequence and g...

This one is not so recent article, nevertheless very interesting and path breaking, Scientists have successfully used "next generation sequencing" to identify mutations that may cause a rare and mysterious genetic disorder. The research, published by Cell Press on July 29th in the  American Journal of Human Genetics,  demonstrates that sequencing an affected individual's entire "exome"; that is, all of the genes that carry instructions for producing proteins, can reveal critical genes that when mutant, cause inherited disorders. Perrault syndrome is a recessive disorder that is associated with hearing loss in both boys and girls, and failure of ovarian function in girls. Some individuals with Perrault syndrome also have neurological symptoms. Prior to the current study, no genes for Perrault syndrome had been identified. A research group led by Mary-Claire King, PhD, from the University of Washington in Seattle studied the genetics of Perrault syndrome in a s...

This something really interesting to PPI, Systems biology  and molecular networks people, I just recently came across, Cellular processes and pathways, whose deregulation may contribute to the development of cancers, are often represented as cascades of proteins transmitting a signal from the cell surface to the nucleus. However, recent functional genomic experiments have identified thousands of interactions for the signalling canonical proteins, challenging the traditional view of pathways as independent functional entities. Combining information from pathway databases and interaction networks obtained from functional genomic experiments is therefore a promising strategy to obtain more robust pathway and process representations, facilitating the study of cancer-related pathways.  Results: We present a methodology for extending pre-defined protein sets representing cellular pathways and processes by mapping them onto a protein-protein interaction network, and extending them t...

Through a complex analysis of protein interactions, researchers from IRB Barcelona and the Joint Programme IRB-BSC have discovered new molecular mechanisms that may be involved in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. The study, a collaboration between bioinformaticians and cell biologists, was led by IRB Barcelona group leader and ICREA researcher Patrick Aloy and appears today in the Genome Research, a reference journal in the field of genomics. Alzheimer’s disease is an age-related neurodegenerative disease. Despite the considerable efforts made in recent years to understand the mechanisms that trigger this disease, an effective treatment is not yet available. This study reveals new molecular and functional data that could help researchers gain a better understanding of the disease and potentially to develop new therapies.  From the computer to the lab  Proteins are the molecular instruments that cells use to carry out their functions. Proteins don’t normally act alone,...

Reckitt Benckiser emerged successful in race to buy Pars in spite of 4 global drugmakers submit bids for India's Paras Pharma buy .  Reckitt Benckiser Group plc (RB) today announces that it has agreed to buy Paras Pharmaceuticals Limited (Paras) forINR 32.6 billion (Indian Rupees) (approximately GBP 460 million) from the current shareholders, including the Patel family and Actis, the emerging markets private equity investor. RB will finance the transaction from existing facilities.    Paras is a privately-owned Indian company with a portfolio of leading Indian over the counter Health and Personal Care brands including:    Moov, the No 2 topical analgesic pain ointment, D’Cold, the No 2 cold & flu remedy, Dermicool, the No 2 for prickly heat, Krack, the No 1 medicated skin treatment for cracked heels and Itch Guard and Ring Guard anti fungal creams. In addition, Paras has a personal care business led by Set Wet, a leading hair gel and deodorant bran...

This is no Sci-Fi but reel to real! Yes we can in deed program the DNA for real Now!  Bioinformatics scientists have built two logic gates for what they hope will become a new programming language for drug design as well as chemical and agricultural product engineering. The accomplishment seems hardly noteworthy except that these logic gates are made of E. coli. The two computational switches are based on two strains of the common bacterium. Researchers are now working to assemble them to perform computations. This genetic programming software would resemble any other programming language, says Kevin Clancy, senior staff scientist for bioinformatics at Life Technologies Corp. The Carlsbad, CA, company is funding the work, which is being done by researchers at the UC San Francisco School of Pharmacy. Life Tech plans to commercialize the technology. The software would convert instructions into a DNA sequence to be inserted into a bacterial, yeast or mammal cell. "It allows you ...

Check out this SlideShare Presentation: ECCB 2010 Next-gen sequencing Tutorial View more presentations from Thomas Keane .

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Belgian biotech firm Galapagos today announced its BioFocus service division has extended a contract with Amgen through 2012 to include target discovery and validation work. The extension will include the use of BioFocus' target discovery platform to deliver novel targets to support Amgen's therapeutic programs. Galapagos will receive €2 million ($2.6 million) in research fees in the first year, under the terms of the deal. It is also eligible for access fees and milestone payments. Originally forged in 2002, the collaboration between BioFocus, which Galapagos acquired in 2005, and Amgen involves identifying new molecules against drug targets. The partnership was extended in 2006 and 2008. BioFocus' discovery platform includes the use of  in vitro  and cell-based screening, structural biology, and chemogenomic and informatics tools.

In this article, in the first part, we propose an artificial neural network-based intelligent technique to determine the quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) among known aldose reductase inhibitors (ARIs) for diabetes mellitus using two molecular descriptors, i.e., the electronegativity and molar volume of functional groups present in the main ARI lead structure. We have shown that the multilayer perceptron-based model is capable of determining the QSAR quite satisfactorily, with high  R -value. Usually, the design of potent ARIs requires the use of complex computer docking and quantum mechanical (QM) steps involving excessive time and human judgement. In the second part of this article, to reduce the design cycle of potent ARIs, we propose a novel ANN technique to eliminate the computer docking and QM steps, to predict the total score. The MLP-based QSAR models obtained in the first part are used to predict the potent ARIs, using the experimental data reported by Hu...

Linguamatics is currently seeking a talented post graduate with experience of natural language processing to work on leading edge text mining products. You will be responsible for developing and maintaining resources for domain specific adaptation of real-time semantic search software based on Natural Language Processing. Working closely with application scientists and the development team, you will ensure that the combination of software and resources satisfies customer requirements. This will include developing linguistic patterns, and programs to transform domain specific terminologies into common formats and keep them up-to-date. You will be working on life science applications, and some knowledge of the Pharmaceutical or Healthcare industry would be useful.In addition to resource and application development, you will be expected to contribute to ongoing UK or EU funded research projects as part of the research and resource development team. You will have strong communication ski...